Channeling Gutenberg in the Wonder Workshop

What could 15th century German inventor Johannes Gutenberg, whose moveable-type printing press changed the world, possibly have to say to Fourth Graders studying computer-aided design in Colorado Academy’s Lower School Wonder Workshop?

A whole volume’s worth, it turns out.

“One of the most important things I try to teach my students is that technology is more than just the phones and devices we see everywhere today,” explains Travis Reynolds, Lower School Technology Instructor.

“In Gutenberg’s time, the printing press was a revelation, suddenly allowing the wide dispersal of knowledge beyond the exclusive realms of nobility and wealth. It was just as world-changing as the advent of the internet or the arrival of today’s artificial intelligence. My goal is to empower kids to feel capable of creating something that’s never existed—to put on the hat of an inventor or a revolutionary or change maker.”

CA’s Lower School librarians, Director of Libraries Allison Peters Jensen and Library Assistant Jordan Knowles, were interested in much the same idea when they first brought the idea of studying Gutenberg to Reynolds this summer. 

In past years, Fourth Graders had investigated the history of libraries and books by “time-traveling” to the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. Jensen and Knowles wanted to expand this itinerary to include the origins of printed books in Asia and in Gutenberg’s Germany, so they devised a new unit in which the students learn about the revolutionary printing press and create their own “illuminated” manuscripts.

When Reynolds heard about their plan, he suggested further extending the project by giving Fourth Graders access to digital design and fabrication tools they could use to replicate a process that half a millennium ago seemed like magic. 

‘Everyone can be an innovator’

In his Wonder Workshop, hands-on engagement with technologies from vinyl cutters to 3D design software fuels creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking for Lower School students in Pre-K through Grade Five. Beginning with cardboard and paper constructions in the earliest grades, Reynolds offers a broad, innovation-focused curriculum that moves through engineering and simple machines, computer science, graphics and design, and the principles of Design Thinking.

The printing press concept would be right at home.

“We’re so used to seeing printed words all around us,” argues Reynolds. “The books we read, the signs and billboards in the environment, even the logos on our favorite products. We’re almost hardwired to respond to all these symbols; kids are just fascinated by things like fonts and imagery.”

“But so much in our culture encourages us to be passive consumers of all this information and design,” he continues. “Through history, we’ve seen that those who simply accept what’s given to them aren’t the ones making the world better. This project reminds young people that they can be producers, too. Everyone can be an innovator.”

Students learn about the challenges Gutenberg would have faced in designing his own moveable type and press: What kind of ink produces the cleanest impression? What should the letter shapes be made from to render text most legibly? What kind of mechanism do you use to hold and impress a typeset design onto paper?

“It’s an iterative process,” says Reynolds. “Getting the ink just right, creating a design that’s legible. I tell students that even for me as their teacher, I had to go through several types of media—vinyl, plastic—before I found the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) with the right balance of firmness and elasticity to carry the ink and make a clean impression.”

Failing and trying again, he notes, was as familiar to Gutenberg as it is in the Wonder Workshop. It took long months of experimentation with different types of soft metals and pressing mechanisms before the German craftsman arrived at the use of hand molds for rapidly creating large quantities of moveable type and a screw press-style machine for turning out finished pages. 

“My students discover that objects don’t just appear: We have to struggle to realize a new idea, and we make mistakes. Connecting them with this very old process helps them see how working in the unknown is something we still have in common with the past.”

More than words

The Fourth Graders start their project by sketching out what they want to say in print—their name, a Taylor Swift lyric, or practically anything else—and then browsing a library of digital fonts that give expression to their idea. This is probably the most exciting part of the process, observes Reynolds. When students can choose from Harry Potter-style letter shapes, the Denver Broncos logo font, and a KPop Demon Hunters-inspired typeface, among dozens of others, they suddenly see their words take on a life of their own.

Designers then create and revise printing blocks using Tinkercad, a 3D design app that lets them download fonts and arrange raised text on a model of a TPU carrier block, which is then fabricated on one of the Wonder Workshop’s 3D printers so it can be fitted into a precisely shaped handle. 

The biggest challenge for the Fourth Graders? Working backwards: Just like Gutenberg’s moveable type, the students’ 3D-printed text must be carved in reverse in order to render correctly when printed.

“We take it for granted, but when kids understand how to create a mirror image of what they want to make, it unlocks a world that’s now attainable to them. There’s so much power in design—it gives them access to more than just words on a page. The fonts we choose, layout, ink color, and print medium: These add up to meaning.”

Empowering students to create things that express something and even make an impact is at the heart of the CA education, after all. 

“Every time kids come to me asking, ‘Can I?’” explains Reynolds, “I always want to say, ‘Yes.’”