Project-Based Learning with Woodstock High School
A year-long, hands-on STEM partnership where students build with real hardware and project groups run experiments with genuinely unknown answers.
A Full Year of Real Engineering
Maker Lab Kids is partnering with Woodstock High School for the 2026-2027 academic year on a STEM Project-Based Learning effort for all freshman Environmental Science and Biology classes. We're not dropping off a kit and a worksheet - we're partnered with the teachers and embedded with the class throughout the year. We started with Teach the Teachers during pre-planning to provide our partners with the foundation for the semester. Then we will provide onsite intensives for the classes each semester, floating deep-dive workshops when projects hit roadblocks, and frequent check-ins with the instructors to keep every group moving forward.
Students work in small project groups, each with its own project topic and its own hardware. Our job is to hand them the skills of a working engineer - microcontrollers, sensors, data, 3D printing - and then support them as they apply those skills to their own project questions.
How the Year Unfolds
Pre-Planning
We work with the program sponsor to confirm goals, class structure, and project directions - so day one of school is already dialed in.
Teacher Preparation
Onsite planning days with the instructors: a crash course in the workshop content, cross-discipline connections, and the timing of the year.
Fall Intensive
8-10 school days of hands-on workshops introducing the tools and techniques every project will build on - daily onsite facilitation with real hardware.
Floating Workshops & Check-Ins
Up to six deep-dive workshops scheduled where projects need them most - plus monthly check-ins with the lead instructor to keep milestones on track.
Spring Intensive
8-10 more days onsite for the home stretch: advanced prototyping, iterative testing, troubleshooting, and polishing final projects and presentations.
The Skills Toolkit
The workshops give students a working engineer's skillset. Topics adapt to the projects, starting with the skills common to all of them:
Microcontrollers
Program Arduino-class boards to read the world and react to it.
Microprocessors
Set up Raspberry Pi single-board computers as the brains of a project.
Sensors
Sound, temperature, light, motion, distance, pH - measure what matters, precisely.
Actuators
Servos and motors that let a project move, sort, open, close, and respond.
Protocols & Wiring
How devices really talk: I2C, SPI, and the art of debugging a signal.
Web Dashboards
Serve live project data to any browser - charts, logs, and alerts students build themselves.
Data Visualization
Turn thousands of readings into a chart that answers a question.
CAD
Sketch, model, and refine in 3D Computer Aided Design software to create digital version of physical parts.
CAM
Taking a digital design from CAD to physical part requires Computer Aided Machine - to define the best mapping of the design to physical capbilities of the tool.
3D Printing
Printing the actual parts in the physical world to function as you need them, and iterate quickly if necessary.
Real Projects, Real Unknowns
The projects center on the school's vermiculture program - and the student projects aren't repeats of settled science. They can ask questions without published answers, and build and deploy the technology to get answers. Real projects. Real science. Real learning.
The Worm Environment Lab
Students can instrument bins with a variety of sensors, from lab-grade seismic sensors, controlled vibration sources, and light sensor arrays to chart how worms actually behave. Air temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors to evaluate the above ground conditions. In ground capacitive moisture sensors and temperature probes to monitor soil conditions. Done well, this is science-fair-winning work. And beyond the science the skills last a lifetime of endless cross functional applications.
Engineered Harvesting Systems
Groups design, 3D print, and field-test their own casting sieves, migration trays, and harvesting mechanisms - then measure the results and redesign.
Sketch, CAD, print, test, iterate: the full engineering design cycle, run against a real biological system that doesn't care how nice your first draft looked.
Real Hardware for Every Project
Nobody watches from the back row. Students and project groups get equipment to setup, tweak, tune, configure, and deploy.
Student
- WiFi-enabled microcontroller
- Breadboard and wiring to build real circuits
- A sensor to experiment with
- Skills that transfer straight to home projects
Project Group
- A Raspberry Pi single-board computer
- A full sensor suite - light, sound, distance, motion, and more
- Live data displays, servos, and precision analog converters
- Power, cabling, and a custom hardware case
Engineered Like We Mean It
🔧 Pre-Tested Gear
Every board and sensor is bench-tested and pre-soldered (except where soldering is the lesson!) where needed before it reaches a student - with spares on hand for the ones that fail anyway.
🔒 Network-Safe by Design
Projects communicate over their own isolated classroom network with no internet access - nothing touches the school's infrastructure.
🔬 Professional Bench Practice
Students work with real diagnostic tools - multimeters, logic analyzers, ESD-safe handling
🤝 Built With the Teachers
Instructors get their own equipment set, prep training before the semester, and a direct line to us all year long.
Who's Behind This?
Maker Lab Kids is a STEM-focused educational consultancy founded by two technology veterans with 25+ years of experience each - one a United States Marine turned maker who has coached robotics and cybersecurity teams to Worlds and Nationals, the other a Georgia Tech engineer turned technology executive. We're a proud minority and veteran owned business serving our local community.
Want This at Your School?
We design PBL partnerships around your students, your curriculum, and your projects - from a single intensive to a full academic year.
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