From May 22nd to 24th, bits4kids coaches from Austria visited Vilnius Trakų Vokė Gymnasium. They taught students how to program their own designs for embroidery machines.
The setting
The program used for this purpose was called “Embroidery Designer.” Three teachers (bits4kids trainers) from Austria taught the students, and they were joined by the computer science teacher, English teacher, technology teacher, and art teacher. The project involved 15 students from the 6th grade (11-12 years old), including 10 girls. In total, nine classes were conducted. Additionally, the guests from Austria had the unique opportunity to explore Vilnius and its surroundings. They visited the TV tower, Trakai, and the Old Town of Vilnius.
The process of the project
On the first day, the students were introduced to the Erasmus project and the process of the lessons. Embroidery samples were shown to them. Afterwards, the students came up with their own designs and drew them on a piece of paper. They communicated with the Austrian teachers in English, which at first caused a little bit of shyness but that quickly changed over time.
On the second day, the computer science teacher reminded the students about the coordinate system, which is an important part of embroidery programming. The teachers from Austria then taught the students how to program using the “Embroidery Designer” software and started with some simple patterns, which have subsequently been a help for programming one’s own designs.
On the third day it got down to business. The students programmed their own designs. As they had already familiarised themselves well with the programme in the days before, this worked very well. If they needed help with something, they could always ask the teachers, but they also helped each other a lot! After all, the final step was embroidering their designs on the bags using the embroidery machine.
Final thoughts
Not only the students were very satisfied with the results. Many super cool designs have been created. And not only that, several subjects were integrated into this project, including information technology, English language, art, handicraft, and mathematics. The students had fun and learned a lot, this has to be called a complete success!
Traku Vokes gimnazija is thrilled to be participating in this Erasmus Project, as well as we are.
