Work Under a Blue Sky

In the last month or so of school, it’s time for Blue Sky. It’s not really about anything to do with the actual sky, except for the fact that with this project, anyone could could reach for it. Blue Sky, essentially, is a time that workers at Apple get to peruse their own interests while making something. PLP has adapted it into a large project most grades work on with an open question. For grade eights, that question was “How can you improve the life of a non-PLP learner?”.

To improve the life of a non-PLP learner, I found a client; my friend Tia. Her and I share the common problem of not having enough light to read at night. This is because current existing book lights don’t offer adequate light, and require moving often. I wanted to solve this problem through making a new booklight that would clip onto the cover of any book, shine on the whole page, and not need moving.

: This book,goth needs to be moved anddoesnt light up the page well.

: My book light doesn’t need moving and shines over the whole page.

After following the Launch Cycle on the last Maker unit, we employed the project method again this time as well. For each stage, there were different things to be done. The following book is about the process I went through making my Novelight.

Blue Sky Designer’s Journal

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

When this project was done, I was more happy with the work I’d done than I’d originally thought I would. Before the exhibition started, I was really nervous to present something that I honestly didn’t think was that great. What my booklight turned out to be like wasn’t what I had imagined in my head. Even though I was concerned that people wouldn’t understand the issue or my solution, I talked about it the best I could. The good feedback left me with a renewed sense of confidence in my project.

So, what did I learn, what stood out to me in Blue Sky? The answer would largely be the fact that I kept making the product. It was hard when my first couple prototypes basically were unusable, but I really did I want to solve this problem, not just for my friend and I, for more readers out there. The broad topic at times seemed both very open and quite constricting, however when I reached the end I was content with my light and the process I had completed.

Some photos from the Blue Sky exhibition & my project.