CANCELLED: Designing Like Da Vinci: Innovating With STEAM

Purpose & objective

Legends about Leonardo daVinci speculate that his curiosity about the world around him led to his status as a prolific inventor. Observing a bird’s wings and wondering “How can we fly?” represents daVinci’s forward-thinking process, imagining how common sights and objects can accomplish practical or even uncommon feats. By utilizing daVinci’s notebooks of sketches and postulating how we make simple and complex things work, learners will first be welcomed into a fusion of art and robotics. The planning, processes, and continued evolution of inventions are clearly illustrated in daVinci’s sketches and serve as not only a fine arts and STEAM connection, but also inspiration for learners as they explore being inventors through the media of digital canvases, everyday objects, and their imaginations.

Supporting research

Cross, J. L., Hamner, E., Bartley, C., & Nourbakhsh, I. (2015, October). Arts & Bots: application and outcomes of a secondary school robotics program. In 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
Liao, C. (2016). From interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary: An arts-integrated approach to STEAM education. Art Education, 69(6), 44-49.
Miller, D. P., & Nourbakhsh, I. (2016). Robotics for education. In Springer’s handbook of robotics (pp. 2115 - 2134). Spring,er, Cham.
Morgan, K., Barker, B., Nugent, G., & Grandgenett, N. (2019). Educational Robotics as a Tool for Youth Leadership Development and STEM Engagement. In STEM Education 2.0 (pp. 248-275). Brill Sense.
Oner, A. T., Nite, S. B., Capraro, R. M., & Capraro, M. M. (2016). From STEM to STEAM: Students’ beliefs about the use of their creativity. The STEAM Journal, 2(2), 6.
Sullivan, A., & Bers, M. U. (2018). Dancing robots: integrating art, music, and robotics in Singapore’s early childhood centers. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 28(2), 325-346.
Sullivan, A., Strawhacker, A., & Bers, M. U. (2017). Dancing, drawing, and dramatic robots: Integrating robotics and the arts to teach foundational STEAM concepts to young children. In Robotics in STEM education (pp. 231-260). Springer, Cham.