"The Design Camp"

Hey this is Ming, I’ve been away these few days, but now I’m back. Last week we’ve been working at the design camp, which took place in the garden we’ve been maintaining for the past few weeks. At this design camp, we’ve met 10 wonderful campers between the age of 7 and 10, Jonah, Eoin, Eamon, Shea, William, Jack, Abby, Maia, Ethan, and Elan.

In this camp we’ve helped them in creating their own designs for their T-shirt prints and stepping stones. They would also be working on their note book sometimes, filling it up with their beautiful experiences and memories of this camp. When they are not working on their design projects, they are helping us around with the garden. They got to plant flowers, pull the weeds, pick the beans, and other garden maintenance.

And when they weren’t doing any work, they get to have free time to play. They would play in the sprinkler, or the mud to keep cool from the heat. We interns would have to look after them as they played in the sun. However besides from doing that, we also joined them in their activities. We hosted baseball games, badminton, and water fights. During lunch time we would join the kids as they swallowed down food that they’ve been longing for all day. We had all kinds of food in this camp, we had pizza, egg rolls and dumplings, sandwiches, and so on.

On the third day of the week we went on a field trip where we visited the Noguchi Museum, where the kids got to explore and find their favorite sculptures. After seeing all the artistic creations by Noguchi, we took a break and had lunch at the Socrates Sculpture park. We played tag, capture the flag, chased Eric around, and all kind of fun games.

On the last day of design camp, I along with all the interns came to the park early in the morning to prepare water ballon for our revenge on the kids. Later in the day we waited patiently for the right time to attack the kids, as the kids were finishing up their stepping stone. When the time came, we took all the kids out to the park and blasted each and everyone of them with water ballons. Surprised, the kids attacked back and we had the water fight of the century. As day approached night, we get ready to leave for the day. After saying goodbye to the kids, we walked out of the park and never looked back.

...Leaving behind an experience that we will all cherish, forever. ^^

Where it's "still" at...

Hey, this is Annie, and you’re returning to “where it’s AT!” (a sad smile on my face emerges now haha.) For the past week the Hester Street Collaborative held its first (ever!) Design Camp for kids. It was a greatly tiring and fun week for us interns, who basically watched and played with the ten kids. We took care of a lot of business this week: making concrete stepping stones to be put into the ground in the garden, silk-screening with the kids (and making t-shirts and book covers), taking care of the garden, painting, making models of the garden, and, most of all, cleaning! And on Wednesday, we went to the Noguchi museum where we saw a lot of sculptures and designing, and then to Socrates Sculpture Park nearby.

Besides all the work, though, I think I really enjoyed the camp, mostly because I was able to have fun with the kids, and the kids were able to roam around and explore their imaginations. (And the food and cold drinks weren’t too bad, either.) We even had bottle fights with water. On Friday, to get back at the kids for all their “evil” efforts at getting us interns soaking wet, we came in early in the morning to make water balloons, and we proceeded to give them their “present” later on in the day (imagine some evil laughter right now). I think the best part of the week for me was when I got Maia to eat part of a turkey sandwich, even though she originally turned down my generous offer. I guess part of me wants to realize that I DO have the potential to become a teacher one day, and I feel I have those instincts, to “manipulate” kids into eating and having fun while learning at the same time. (It’s also nice to know that after taking a career test the other day for CPC orientation that teaching would probably be the best career for me haha).

Last week was great; I’m going to miss making the kids laugh at my super-duper corny jokes (because they’re the only ones that will), playing in the mud pit, and generally having fun as a kid again (now that I’m 18, those days will soon be over, and I’m quite sad about that). There are definite things that we discussed today that can be changed about the design camp, mostly changes in the organization and structuring of the camp, but overall it went really well for the first camp ever. And this week, although we are finished with design camp and feeling TAN-tastic, we still have a lot of work to do, and onward we move! So until my next blog entry, this has been where it’s AT.

Hey everyone!!!

This is Carmen speaking again. I am exhausting from last week’s design/build boot camp, but it was a great experience and a lot of fun. Each day was filled with creative activities and noisy children covered in mud. Every morning, the campers would start their day by watering the plants and pulling out weeds. Then they would start on their projects such as texture rubbing, silk screening, scavenger hunting, t-shirt making, stepping stone making, and model building. After lunch, the campers had several hours of free time. Guess what took place during this period? WATER FIGHT!!! Yes, all the campers attacked the interns so we decide to get them back. We purposely arrived early on the last day to fill up water balloons. In the end, the interns went against each other.

In this past week, we also spent a day at the Noguchi Museum and the Socrates Sculpture Park. The kids found their favorite sculptures and drew them. At the park, all the kids chased Eric around until his shirt and book bag were torn. Poor Eric! Anyways, I had a great time with these adorable, energetic kids. I look forward to working with others in the future.

This week is my last week at Hester Street Collaborative. I hope to accomplish as much as I can in this short period of time so I must get working. I’ll be back before you know it.

See you later!

Ahhh yes, Design Camp…

If there was one word that can describe that week, it would be crazy. It was organized chaos in a sense because there were so many things going on at once. At one point it was pretty hard to keep track of the campers. Even though they were a handful, every moment was worth it.
We had many activities that we did to carry us through the day. We did silk screening, painting, water fights, and stepping stones. And on top of all of those activities, we also had to maintain the garden. All in all, it was a week well spent.
On the first day that I was there (Tuesday), I was working with the kids to silk screen their t-shirt. They came up with extremely good designs. Some of them were snakes, worms, bears, etc. Considering the fact that they were silk screening for the first time, their prints came out pretty well. Even their t-shirts look professional. They really did a good job. The only thing that would’ve been better was if there was more room so that more people can do the silk screen at the same time. The tables were too small to support a lot of people at once.

Besides the silk screens, we also did some relief drawings by rubbing the piece of paper on some leaves and when we were at the Socrates Sculpture Garden, we did a rubbing on the shark fin. Speaking of the garden, we had a lot of fun there. We played freeze tag, capture the flag, and watched Eric getting beat up. I think they took a liking to Eric because that would explain why they kept on beating him up. While we were at the park, the kids also did a sketch of their favorite sculpture at the park.
While the rest of the interns are describing their week at the design camp, I on the other hand feel that is important to talk about how we are going to improve the design camp. The camp went very well considering the face that this was the first time that we were doing it.

At the meeting that we had today, we discuss some of the ways in which we can improve the design camps. Some of the ideas that we came up were that we should be more organized, more activities. We said that we have to be more organized because there were a few days in which we were confused in what we were suppose to do. To fix that, we are planning to hold a meeting each day after the design camp ends to plan for the next day. Even the design camp was successful this year, we feel that there should be more activities because that would give the children more options on what they would like to do.



Now that the design camp is over, it will never be forgotten because of all of the great times we do. For now, we are resuming our own individual projects that we later are going to present to each other. Currently, I am doing a photo essay/book on how the individual household owner can live a life that is environmentally friendly.
See you next week!

Mindy's Last Post

Mindy is here again! This will be the last week working for this summer. Work at HSC has been a blast and a great learning experience. Just from a few weeks, I learned how to silkscreen, work on Illustrator, basic gardening, work with kids, create stepping stones, and so much more. Time sure flies by! Hopefully I will be able to work here during this fall!

We helped supervise a Design Camp last week. The cute little campers were all from ages of six to ten-years-old. They were adorable small designers, architects, and artists. The creative campers built a ‘river’ in the mud pit, getting mud all over their bodies. They basically took a mud bath! Besides building a ‘river’, they dug for worms. There were at least seventy worms found. How often do you find a mud pit in NYC? Pretty awesome for the Design Camp to have a mud pit for the kids. I would have loved to play in one if I were younger.

Well time to return to work!

I’m working, learning and “sparkle”-ing haha.

Good morning from the office; this is Annie again! Soo this week we’ve been getting ready for our design camp with the kids from P.S. 134. We’ve been getting supplies from a huge number of places so we’re ready for the kids on Monday. We also got ready to make stepping stones with the kids by learning how to make them on our own. We made our own mold of a dragonfly out of precut pieces of wood, and on Tuesday we put in cement mix so we could start learning how to do it.
For me though, this week was predominantly about finishing up my silk-screening process with my Mr. Sparkle design from “The Simpsons.” I was the last one to go, and it took me two days to finish because of all the different colors. Each stencil looked somewhat misplaced (like shifted puzzle pieces), but it looks like it was meant to be that way, so it worked out perfectly haha. It looks a lot better and greater than I thought it could become. I even put my design on a gray t-shirt; I can’t wait to wear my shirt tomorrow when I go watch “The Simpsons Movie.” Yay! And making t-shirts for the kids at P.S. 134 for their gym uniforms should be a snap now.
We also heard a presentation on Tuesday from a volunteer here, Emily, about urban development in some places she visited for her study abroad program. We learned about the javelas in Rio De Janeiro, the huge amount of racism in the society of Cape Town, and the battles of the indigenous peoples of Auckland, New Zealand. It was a very interesting presentation; I didn’t know that kind of stuff was still happening around the world.
Today we’re going to continue our design camp preparation; we’re going to go to the garden, check out our concrete stepping stone mold and put in some mosaic tiles. And next week will be busy work with the kids, but design camp should be fun. With the kids, we’ll be silk-screening shirts and book covers, making stepping stones, playing some scavenger hunt games, etc. Till my next entry, all, this has been where it’s at. (Get it? A.T.? Annie Tan? =D)

Eric's preview for upcoming week

Hey, this is Eric Yuan. Today I am going to give you a sneak peek on what we are going to be doing next week. We are going to be baby-sitting little kids for this year’s camp at P.S.134. We are learning how to make stepping-stones so when we teach the kids it will be as easy as making cake, if that is how it goes.
Dennis and I went on a little trip to pick up five silk-screens and five squeegees for the camp at P.S.134. We will be making t-shirts for the kids. The camp will be starting next week on Monday so we are preparing. We all came up with our own designs for the stepping-stone, and then we had to pick one out of all the designs. We chose the dragonfly. We brought the design to the garden to mold it, but we didn’t want the cement to stick to the side of the box, so we put Vaseline all over the box. It was a little nasty; it was stuck on my hand even when I washed it down. When we were at the garden we saw that the peach tree was still sick; slime was coming out from the trunk, so we cleaned the slime off the tree and are hoping that it will heal.
Do not go away; I will be back next week, so remember to tune in on my next blog, or you can check out the other blogs the workers have written. Next week it will be a little crazy with the kids; I will be telling you what crazy things we have been doing, so again, remember to tune in on my blog.

Carmen Speaking!!! Shhh

Hello! This is Carmen speaking. It is my 3rd week at Hester Street Collaborative and we interns are busier than ever. Next week, the design/build boot camp will begin so this week we are making preparations.
Yesterday, Dylan showed us how to make a stepping-stone. This is a project that all the kids will be working on. It is actually quite interesting. First, we had to create a design using wooden geometric shapes. This took a while since everyone was so indecisive. When we finally decided to use a dragonfly design, we glued it onto a wooden board and placed it into a small wooden box. At the garden, Eric and Ming put Vaseline on the inner surface of the box. This will help us remove the cement, which we poured into the box, after the concrete mix completely dries. Drying will take about two days so until then we will be working on other preparations.
This week, I helped sand down the wooden geometric shapes that the kids will be using to make their design. I also gathered more information for my research project. I spent many hours researching and thinking of how to present my project. My final decision is to create a magazine concerning Van Cortlandt Park. It will consist a brief history of this park, public’s opinions, descriptions of the park, information about groups that help maintain the park, details about current projects, a map and many photos. Also, as a group, we spent time in the garden cleaning the diseased peach tree that has been oozing out a sticky substance.

Eric found a rather large yellow caterpillar while cleaning. This was the 3rd caterpillar we spotted this week. Caterpillars, they just LOVE us! JToday we will be picking up supplies that will be needed for the design/build boot camp. Yes, that is the aim for today. Okay, it is time for me to go sand down more wooden geometric shapes. See you next week!

Dennis here, yet again...

Hey! This is Dennis here! And yet again, I am reporting from the workshop again. One week has passed and there is much to explain. If you can recall to last week’s post, I said that I was going to start a project on PlaNYC 2030. But unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Now, I’m planning to start a project in a photo guidebook to how individuals can make lifestyle changes that is more environmental friendly. So far that idea is brewing in my head and it appears to be more interesting that PlaNYC.
Besides changing my project, the week was pretty eventful because there is always something to do at Hester Street Collaborative. Next week we are about to start the design camp for the young kids and to prepare for the design camp we were instructed to create boxes that will be used in the stepping stone project. The boxes will be used to hold the design and the concrete mixture until it is dry. We also cut out geometric shapes and sand it down so the kids are able to us it to create a creature that they found in the garden. There is a lot of sawdust down here from all of the sanding. I have a feeling that we are about to clean the workshop again.
And when we are not preparing for the design camp, we are at the garden as usual, tending to the many plants that inhabit it. We were removing the weeds from the vegetables and then we were cleaning up the peach tree. It turns out that the peach tree is infected with a type of fungus and so we were removing the stuff that was oozing out from the tree. It was pretty fun. That is all that I have time to write about, so until next time have fun without me.

Mindy is back...

Hey this is Mindy again. This will be my third week working at HSC. I just finished my first silkscreen. It came out the way I wanted it to. I like the strong contrast in color and the use of only primary colors.
Last week, I worked on Illustrator for the first time, which I had always wanted to do. I learned how to use the pen, smoothing and anchor tools. It was easy to catch on. I also started researching on Chinatown Youth Initiatives, a non-profit organization that helps the local community through community projects similar to HSC’s.
At the garden, I helped take out the goo from the peach tree. A lot of ants were crawling all over it. Poor tree. Now we need to go buy fungicide to help save it. I also picked out the dead leaves off the sunflowers. Hope those sunflowers will bloom brighter!
We are up to our next project, to create a stepping-stone as a group for the garden. It is hard deciding which design to use. We’re all contemplating whether to use a tree, a bee, a squirrel, a chick, or a spider as our design. This project will be very fun. We get to work with cement! Time to get messy!

Mindy's First Week

Hey everyone! This is Mindy Tom (People call me Mindy Tomboy), a summer intern from LaGuardia High School, class of 2008. Woot Woot! I first learned about this internship through the LEARN program from school, a program that introduces students to the real world, similar to the Summer Youth Employment Program. I grew an interest to HSC because the work is very hands-on and tactile.

I just started working since last week and so far, everything has been very fun and new. Dylan taught us how to silk screen and garden (things I do not usually do). Silk screening was an interesting process. We started designing our own stencils to practice silk screening. I made three different stencils, for three different color layers just to complete my design. I had to plan out the color applications carefully since overlapping one color on another made a different color. I am still in the process of completing my design. I hope it will come out right!

Once, while waiting for the screen to dry to silkscreen, us interns got silly and started playing with contact paper cutouts. I made myself a Pringle mustache. It was very foolish looking and hilarious. So far the work is very laid back, but it still wasn’t all fun and games. Then again, we had a lot of fun doing all of this stuff.

One time, we were attacked by a flock of pigeons while walking to the garden. They just swooshed right above our heads! Thank goodness we knelt down. If we didn’t, the pigeons would have rammed into our heads.

Under 90+-degree weather, our hard work and constant sweating paid off. We made the garden nice and tidy. The strawberry bushes, cabbages, cherry trees, apple trees, carrots, lavenders, and other plants were all watered and rehydrated. Tree barks, and loose garbage were all picked up and thrown away. I even found a plastic superhero toy under the soil!

Well it is about time to get back to work! See you guys later!