Project Description
Students will learn about basic electricity and conductivity, designing a felt banner and making it light up, using LEDs, coin, batteries, and sewing in the circuit with metallic conductive thread.
This project gives students an opportunity to think as artists as they create designs from colorful, felt to decorate their banners and as engineers as they decide how to lay out an electrical circuit to illuminate their design.
Final Product
Students will design, decorate, and sew a light up felt banner, to display, that they wire themselves using conductive thread, and LEDs that can be turned on and off with the fabric button they make themselves.
Learning Outcomes
- Students will learn, basic circuitry, how to wire a simple circuit, how to connect a battery to an output source (the LED), and how to make an on/off switch.
- Students will learn about the nature of electrons, conductivity, and resistance.
- Students will have the opportunity to make creative choices in the design of their project, such as developing a design, placement of color, and shape.
- Students will expand their scope of what is possible in terms of creative expression and applied technology as they combine fiber arts with electronics to create their art project.
- Students will learn basic hand, sewing skills while creating a light up banner to display.
Suggested Grades
Best suited for 3rd-12th grades*
Pricing Breakdown
- 4 visits at 45 minutes each
- Prep hours: 3 hours per classroom
- Materials: $2 per student
- Travel from Corvallis
*Note: this residency employs fine motor skills and works best when volunteer helpers are available in the classroom.
Meet the Artist
Why I teach art:
“Art is a universal language that provides access points to learning, opens doors to self expression and offers opportunities for exploration. I teach art because I want students to believe that their ideas are valid and worth exploring and art is a means I can offer to facilitate their discoveries. I enter each class, meet every student with the intention that they’ll be inspired by the glow of their own creative courage to carry into their days.”
—Victoria Wills
