Sound Studio Exhibit Sharing
I walked into the Sound Studio this morning and noticed something I thought was really nice. Check out the pictures below: Pinbell minus the bells.
Making My Own Tamagotchi!
During Research and Development sessions, we explore the possibilities on materials. Sometimes cool ideas are used in our After Dark Events like the Programmable Pets activity in September.
A Dragon in Paper Circuits
During our paper circuits activity at the Tinkering Studio, I helped this young visitor develop her idea: a dragon that spits fire through a “lantern effect.” She wanted to diffuse the light emitted by an LED for a more realistic effect, so we experimented with different types of paper.
Laser cutting experiments - a wood and acrylic inlay technique
This is a guest post by one of our XTech youth program facilitators, Spencer Cheng: This project stemmed from the idea of combining the 2 materials I see used with the laser cutter the most frequently. Using Illustrator, I designed a rose in a container with both weak and loose pieces purposely.
Weaving & Randomness
In the Tinkering Studio, we like to say that the process of tinkering will get you stuck, then you'll find a way to get yourself unstuck. I was feeling pretty stuck with our current sound prototyping so I decided one way I'd try to work through that was by taking a break to work on something completely different.
Developing computational tinkering activities
Our activity development process often starts with the exploration of a physical phenomenon, it often stretches over long periods of time and the development never stops even after an activity has been shared and documented many times. Activities continue to evolve as we try them out ourselves and with others which means every workshop we do with visitors in the Tinkering Studio also plays a role in our activity development.
My Summer at the Exploratorium
As Lianna gave me a tour of the Learning Studio my first day, I noticed many artifacts around the space. A giant cardboard tentacle frames the glass wall where curious visitors observe the Tinkering staff at work.
After Dark Online: Pride
Thursday, June 24, 2021 • 7:00 p.m. PT
In honor of Pride month, join us in celebrating LGBTQ+ culture.
Automata & Reconsidering Materials
The wonderful world of automata is filled with humor and whimsy, but when it comes to making one yourself for the first time it can seem a little scary. Our advice is to 'go for it' ~ don't fret too much, take the leap and just try making one.
Our Latest MOOC - Motion & Mechanisms
Tinkering Fundamentals: Motion & Mechanisms
We're about to launch a new online Professional Development experiment! This new MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is called Tinkering Fundamentals: Motion & Mechanisms. Its free to participate at Coursera.
Join us for a hangout about the Infinite Versatility of Cardboard
This Thursday, we’re hosting a hangout to talk about the Infinite Versatility of Cardboard. Members of the ASTC Making & Tinkering CoP (Community of Practice) will share some of their favorite ideas, projects, tools & techniques for working with cardboard – a material we're incredibly fond of.
National Week of Making
We’re celebrating National Week of Making next week by having different members of the Tinkering team share their perspective on aspects of tinkering at the Exploratorium. To frame the week, we’re pulling a page out of The Art of Tinkering book, where we tried to capture our approach of working with artists, scientists and educators to explore the intersections of art, science and technology through tinkering Tinkering Tenets are a collection of ideas that guide our work and influence choices we make in programs we offer.
Love Tools? Here's the list...
Photo of cardboard tools created by Scout Tran-Caffee as part of OpenMAKE:Tools Last month several members of the ASTC Community of Practice (CoP) for Making and Tinkering had a G+hangout dedicated to TOOLS used in our making & tinkering spaces and why we love them. Since the hangout aired, we've received requests for a list of tools that were mentioned - so here they are as a comprehensive list (see below)! You'll have to watch the recording of the hangout to learn why we love each one of them, but the list makes for a handy reference guide or cheat sheet.
Learning Creative Learning
Learning Creative Learning: An emphasis on Play (as one of the 4 P’s)
This week we were delighted to team-up with folks from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT’s Media lab for their Learning Creative Learning course. Mike and I had a conversation with Mitchel Resnick and his students about the role of play in learning and our work in the Tinkering Studio.
Love tools? Let's talk.....
We're hosting a hangout dedicated to the topic of tools. Since last month was known as the Month of Love, we thought we’d keep the good vibes going as we kickoff a new round of ASTC CoP (Community of Practice) hangouts with Love as our theme.
Meet the Makers: Michael Brown
San Francisco local artist and Exploratorium darling Michael Brown shares some of his recent work, along with his thoughts on what it means to be an artist and a maker. Don't miss it!
Meet the Makers: Brad Prather
Wonderful inventor and contraption-maker Brad Prather shows a few of his solar-powered machines and talks about the importance of educating our youth to think about eco-friendly power sources. This was part of the last Open MAKE event.
Mechanical Mischief: Twisted Toys with Michael Brown
Artist in residence Michael Brown and the Learning Studio, at the Exploratorium will be hosting the first annual, invitation-only "Twisted Toys and Mechanical Mischief" workshop to be held on Saturday, May 8, 2010. Twisted Toys is a "live" event: Exploratorium visitors will watch the creative projects unfold over the course of the day.
Tinkering and making?
* yes that really is my keyboard. We get asked questions about tinkering and making all the time.
Light Play @ Maker Educator Meet-up
At this month’s Maker Educator Meet-up we decided to share Light Play as the activity we try out together. It’s a personal favorite of mine because it blurs the boundary between science and art.
Find us @ ASTC this year....
Here's a list of workshops and talks we're participating in at ASTC this year. If you're in Montréal, or in town for the conference, we hope you'll connect with us while we're there.
Weaving Roundup
Since my last post about weaving way back in December, we've been continuing to try different approaches to tinkering with textiles. It's been an interesting journey, with lots of discoveries (and challenges!) along the way.
Weaving 1.0
Although most of our recent explorations have been about sounds and mechanisms, a couple weeks ago I decided to take a detour into trying my hand at weaving. Weaving and looms are an ancient technology, and one thing that I find fascinating about them is how they are inherently computational.
Sound Harvesting
We have been experimenting with ways of collecting and exploring interesting sounds. One of the first attempts at tackling this activity idea was to dust off our collection of piezo microphones, and try out a number of different ways of capturing captivating sounds from everyday or unexpected objects.
Polyhedra Party!
Sometimes after a long day at work, we've found that a great way to unwind is by coloring geometric patterns and folding them into three-dimensional shapes. Last Thursday night, at After Dark: Figuring, long time tinkering studio collaborator and artist-in-residence Stacy Speyer joined us to host a "Polyhedra Party" to celebrate the intricacy and beauty of these complex forms.
Collaborative prototyping - exploring computational tinkering with sound
We have been prototyping new computational tinkering activities that explore sound during the past 4 months, working collaboratively with our partners from the MIT Lifelong Kindergarten group and the LEGO Idea Studio. During our first round of activity development with mechanisms and sound, back in Spring 2016, we came up with an activity we called "Kinetic Musicale" or "Robot Orchestra" in the early stages.
LEGO Robot Orchestra
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been trying some initial prototypes of LEGO linkages in the Tinkering Studio workshop. We built on our previous robot arm experiments in the learning studio, but as we continued to prepare the activity to be tested on the museum floor, we shifted the focus more toward sound making and music as a prompt for exploration.
LEGO Linkage Experiments
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been working with LEGO foundation to think about how to incorporate LEGO elements into tinkering experiences. We started out with exploring art machines and in the process noticed the ways that the technic pins encouraged participants to think about systematic iteration and appreciated the complexity of the different types of motion, including linkage based mechanisms.
Exploring Linkages with Tinkerer in Residence Noga Elhassid
Earlier this month we were so lucky to have Noga Elhassid in residence with us for two whole weeks! We've been long-time fans of her work with the Moving Toys Workshop, and are always inspired by her playful approach to creating motions and mechanisms. For this time around we set out with an ambitious goal - explore linkages in 5 different ways over the course of the two week residency.
Linkages as Mark Making Machine
Noga shot a series of videos that show the evolution of Lianna's experimentation with linkages this afternoon. It started with a 3-bar linkage plus a crank mechanism and ended with her wanting to "trace" its motion.
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