In the spring each year, my students do a project in my Ancient World History classes where they create a fictional castle or cathedral. The structure must have a history that fits into an event from the Middle Ages, and must follow the architectural guidelines of a typical castle or cathedral from that period. When they present the projects, students must show a blueprint of their building and different characteristics of the structure based on castles or cathedrals they have researched.
For extra credit, students are allowed to build a 3-D model of their creation to use as a visual aid. In the past, students have created amazing structures out of cardboard, wood, popsicle sticks, etc.
However, with advances in technology, students have been able to produce 3-D digital models on their computers. This gives the student who might be passionate about science and technology a venue to display their talents in a history classroom.
This year, students have used programs such as Fusion or Minecraft to create some truly magnificent structures.
Here are some examples:
Cosimo Menichelli, Harsh Patel, JayJay Ugbe
Zuker Campbell, Jan Carlos Riefkohl
Jonathan Zhang, Art Fujita
Spencer Herring, Scott Spyra
Jonathan Pieroni, JD Hull, Jacob Daniel
Clayton Tillery
Gibson Hicks, Travis Black
