Suggestions for things to do in a school Animation club please? - General

In short, I am going to be starting an animation club this coming school year for students, and already have permissions from the teacher who will be assisting me. I would like some suggestions for projects to do with students. Backstory: I graduated last year which was the first time the school tried running a local options course, animation. The course was a fair success and I knew (and know) a lot of students interest in the subject. Unfortunately the course was cut, along with a few other art courses. They cut them because we are getting a massive wave of grade nines this year, so the art teachers won't have enough time slots to do the grade 11 local option courses. I think this is a major shame because many of the students I know are very interested in animation (particularly 2D), the teacher also very much enjoyed teaching it. I tried to protest them cutting many of the art courses, almost completely restricting the extended studies to fine arts (and we all know that doesn't lead to many jobs) excluding one Graphic Design course. Necessities are necessities and they couldn't keep it because they didn't want to hire more art teachers. Details: The previous course covered traditional animation (paper and pencil with light tables), 2D animation (in flash), and 3D animation (in Maya). I'm here looking for suggestions for what to do in the club, I would like to still include activities for each section, and to have teaching sessions for the principles of animation and character design. Of course none of the projects would be mandatory but I'm gonna try to encourage students to do as many of them as possible. I think I would like to have a section where we could have teaching sessions, followed by a choice of different activities and projects that I and the teacher could help with. It's a bit more free reign than the actual course and allows for more fluidity. The main things to teach/cover are: Principles of Animation ([URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation[/URL]) Character Design for Animation (using easy to draw shapes and simplified detail) Traditional Animation (How to, we have light tables as I said) Flash Animation(Basics of the program, other things can be taught as needed one on one) 3D Modeling and Animation (The basics of Maya, I may make and or find some pre-made models for them to animate also if modeling is a difficulty for some of them) So after teaching said basics I would like some ideas or suggestions for projects to include that they could do (or their own of course) and any other suggestions are welcome!

The good basic ball bouncing animation will teach a lot.

[QUOTE=garychencool;37489030]The good basic ball bouncing animation will teach a lot.[/QUOTE] I think I might offer it as an intro project for teaching the program in flash, but most find it pretty boring. Certainly one to include, but I'd like to give lots of options.

Anything? Anyone? Common

Different run/walk cycles are fun [editline]12th September 2012[/editline] You guys could write a story together and each animate a part of it each.

Is this strictly computer generated animation? Because I think it could be fun to cover Stop-Motion animation.

Do a collab. Collabs are fun.

Making an object follow a vector path?

no anime