Digital Engineering for Kids Blog

The following is a blog devoted to the teacher learning curve and classroom use for the Silhouette Digital Cutting Tool. I am Kris Schwengel. I teach 4th Grade in Honolulu, HI. I am working in conjunction with several groups, departments, and individuals. I would like to thank the University of Virginia Curry School of Education for donating a Silhouette to our classroom.

It all started with boxes and software. And let me tell you, it was a bit overwhelming at first. But I quickly learned (the hard way) that there are just a few very simple steps to getting up and running with the Silhouette. Downloading Tabs software (see link below on links entry) was easy. Unpacking the Silhouette was easy. Creating the first project was a snap, also. Working with Adobe Illustrator to get the Silhouette to cut is not easy. As a matter of fact, I think it could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Tabs is awesome and boy is it simple to use.

I made a few sample projects (above) just for fun including a mini-grape juice box, a Bacon box for Kevin Bacon memorabilia, and I've even started making actual mock-ups of my mother-in-law's coffin. If you see her, don't tell her as it is her Christmas gift.

Enough about me, let's get onto how this can help in the classroom. There is no doubt this is an awesome tool, and the software is fantastic, but the question is how can this help students learn? I believe there are some big picture and tight-focus ways learning this skill set can help students' thinking develop in a variety of paths.

First of all, the idea that we can easily program a computer to tell a cutter to make precise cuts is amazing. I liken this to iMovie which brought film editing to the masses. Machines like this have been around for a while, but they've traditionally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Secondly, there is a myriad of skills that can be learned through this process: Spatial Reasoning, Engineering, Graphic Design, and the list goes on and on. The Tabs software website has a great page devoted to this idea of broad appeal to educators.

My first exposure to the students was to simply demo the Silhouette. When that thing started cutting they were shocked and awed!

Next, I taught them the Tabs software. They quickly learned how to use just about every aspect of the software. The were challenged to make two-page instruction manuals. I was quite surprised how quickly they learned and also taught me things I hadn't picked up before.

Now this is where things got interesting. Kids started using Tabs for reasons I didn't expect. One student used it to illustrate a Native American bent box while another saw that the hat they needed was made up of two simple shapes that the Tabs software could easily create and the Silhouette could easily cut, so she did. Wow, right?

Tabs fits in perfectly with a spatial reasoning unit I've been doing for years with elementary students. Students work with cubes to draw, construct, and now render them. I believe this opens up their little minds to 3 dimensional thinking quite well.

Students designed their gingerbread houses using Tabs. Again, I was thrilled with their creativity. Plus, they got to do this to scale and use their measurement skills as well.

What's next? Well, we're now looking at packaging and creating cubes out of flat shapes ourselves. Christmas should provide the students with lots of opportunities to see some neat packaging that you can 'unfold' into a single sheet. This will lead into some serious high-level thinking and planning in the upcoming unit I hope.

This is all new to me so I'm learning myself. One frustration I am having is the scale of the products that come from the Silhouette: everything has to be quite small to fit on a single page. There are other issues with Tabs that I'm compiling as a sort of wish-list that would make the software much more useful for a classroom teacher.