Pixar in a Box

Pixar has partnered with Khan Academy to provide free education about the animation process to students. The course is named “Pixar in a Box“.

Khan Academy provides free online courseware for students. Unlike Coursera and other so-called “open” education sites, Khan Academy does not charge for any of their courses and does not even use advertising. The website originally started as a series of YouTube videos by founder Salman Khan, who was tutoring his cousin.

Most of the courses are geared towards general education of K-12 and college students, with courses like “6th Grade Math” and  “Chemistry”. More recently, Khan Academy has started partnering with other companies, universities, and museums to provide more niche education. The “Pixar in a Box” course is designed for middle-school and high-school students, but it is available to everyone.

The courses are math-heavy, showing how math is used the animation process. For example, one course explains how trigonometry is used to create the Pixar worlds and another teaches how weighted averages are used to create characters. Pixar’s goal is to show how academics relate to real-world applications that students care about.