#676: More Than Meets the Eye: Transforming Black Boys’ STEM Identities through Liberatory Co-Design and Computational Making

This paper examines how liberatory co-design within computational making fosters agency and technical skill development among Black boys. Drawing on a pilot program in the Black Male Animation Lab, we show how connecting students’ cultural interests like Transformers and anime to stop-motion animation created co-designed learning. Findings highlight three themes: storytelling functioned as identity work through community narratives; collaboration and co-design shaped the lab as students negotiated problem-solving, positioning themselves as leaders; and students bridged cultural and technical literacies by connecting fabrication to culturally relevant themes. These findings demonstrate how liberatory co-design transformed the lab into a space where Black boys resisted deficit framings, affirmed identities, and pursued STEM on their own terms, offering a methodological contribution to equity-centered learning.