Sketchpad

From Code to Cutout

07

Jun / 19

07 Jun / 19

Posted by Steph

Paula Bontá talks about coding in the same way I talk about physical materials like wood or wire. I walked away from most of our conversations during her artist residency with variations of “code has texture!” scrawled in my notebook. But the gap between the screen and the world outside of it can feel gigantic, and it’s not always easy to bridge that distance. Finding meaningful ways to tinker physically and digitally continues to be a major area of interest for us at the Tinkering Studio (Deanna wrote up a great summary of some of our computational tinkering investigations). So we were excited about the idea of making code feel more physical to guests on the museum floor.

Visitor holding a paper cutout of a computationally generated shape

Workflow

We invited visitors to code a design using TurtleArt, a block-based programming language made by the Playful Invention Company (Paula Bontá and Brian Silverman). TurtleArt allows users to create images and geometric patterns by constructing a program with blocks of code.

Thanks to Paula’s expertise and enthusiasm, we developed a workflow to move quickly from coded to tactile. I’ve documented our setup for this initial run below; please reach out with ideas for future directions, feedback or questions!

Download TurtleArt. We used the TurtleArt application on an iPad, which is available as a paid app via the iTunes store. You can also contact the TurtleArt team for a free desktop version.
Configure TurtleArt settings. To save images of your creations, make sure that TurtleArt is set up to always save images to your device's camera roll. Go to Settings > TurtleArt and turn on “Always Save to Camera Roll” to ensure this is the case:
Get started with TurtleArt. To avoid the blank page problem, Paula developed a series of code cards with starting points so that visitors had an initial program to familiarize themselves with, build upon, and often change entirely. Our entire starting point set is available for download.

The turtles on the upper lefthand side of the screen indicate the difficulty level of the project, on a 1-3 turtle scale (1 indicating easier programs to construct).
Create an image. After (or sometimes during!) the process of replicating the starting point code, visitors manipulated variables, added and changed blocks, and tested new programs. They continued troubleshooting and experimenting until landing on a graphic that they were ready to make physical. TurtleArt allowed for quick tests and iterations: changing a single block or variable could dramatically change the outcome. Some visitors spent time trying to understand exactly how the program was constructed; others seemed more open to serendipity.
Save the image in the TurtleArt application (the button is labeled with a checkmark icon) to add it to the iPad's camera roll.
Send the image. We used AirDrop to share the image with a designated computer attached to the vinyl cutter. Silhouette Studio allowed us to quickly trace their image in a format recognized by the vinyl cutter. We let visitors choose between different colors of cardstock and acetate because they’re quick to cut.
Cut your creation!

Future Directions

In this version of the activity, visitors coded an image in TurtleArt, cut it out using the vinyl cutter, and walked away with their creations. The vinyl cutter basically functioned as a printer to quickly make their code into something tangible. But how could we take the back-and-forth between physical and digital a step further? What might prompt visitors to cut their initial creation, explore it in the physical world, and then go back to code another version? We're interested in pushing this back-and-forth between the digital and the physical in future iterations of this activity by exploring setups that would allow for visitors to code something, cut it, then quickly iterate and cut another; cut multiples and combine them into new creations; or even use TurtleArt as a starting point and modify the vector file before cutting.

The Art of Computational Tinkering with Paula Bontá

23

May / 19

23 May / 19

Posted by Deanna

This month, we hosted computer scientist and playful inventor Paula Bontá in the Tinkering Studio. Paula is a longtime friend of the Tinkering Studio and her work in the creative computation community runs deep. She's a tinkerer at heart who uses code as a material and encourages people to create art with code.

During her residency, we took a deep dive into TurtleArt, an app she created that uses block-based programming to create digital art. These blocks tell the turtle to draw a line or an arc, what color to use, and where to move on the screen. As a fan of Scratch, many of these blocks felt familiar to work with but the final product felt completely different!

Code as a Material

Paula hosted a workshop for us to play with creating line drawings in TurtleArt and to cut out our designs in the material of our choosing. It was an opportunity to be expressive with code as well as the physical manifestation of our digital creation. What material best represent our geometry? We each explored generating shapes and followed our interests to see where they took us.

Paula used code cards to get us started. They contained some simple (and not so simple) illustrations that can be made in the app. At first, it seemed like creating one of the examples might be complicated enough. But once you have a piece of computer-generated art on your screen, it's easy to see the a desire to customize it and make it your own. "I want these lines to be longer" or "This part should be smaller" were common utterances as we worked on iPads and laptops.

The real fun came when we chose what material and machine to use to bring our creations to life. The possibilities felt truly endless.

Laser cut pieces of plexiglass, wood, and cardboard (Luigi and Steph made cool new pieces for Light Play).
Stitched designs using a computerized sewing and embroidery machine (Ahra messed around with the cool new toy).
Polaroid photographs of creations (Sebastian was exciting by this form of documentation).
Vinyl stickers created on a vinyl cutter (That was my jam).

I took the opportunity to explore one of my favorite machines in the Learning Studio: the vinyl cutter. I made a piece that explored the arch tool in TurtleArt. I enjoyed the complexity and simplicity of the design. It wasn't until I cut it out and removed the negative space from my vinyl sticker that I saw the piece in an entirely different light. There were so many tiny pieces that needed to be removed! It easily took me at least half an hour to remove each individual strip of vinyl, a process I found quite medative. The process of preparing my vinyl sticker afforded me the opportunity to slow down and closely study my design. When I was manipulating my design in my hands, it felt much more personal and a part of me. It was my design that I chose to share with the world and looks quite nice as a decal on my computer.

The Tinkerability of Block vs Text-Based Programming Languages

The conversation arose around the affordances of TurtleArt versus more open-ended, high-ceiling technologies like Processing, a text-based programming language. While Paula was in residence, Ryoko was attending a professional development workshop on Creative Coding with the Wonderful Idea Company and friends that introduced Processing as a creative computation tool. Image similar images to what we created in TurtleArt can be made in Processing, and the threshold to code in text-based language is much higher. And yet, the depth and breadth of possibilities available in Processing are arguably more vast. So which language do you choose?

The short answer is whichever one you want! Tinkering is available in both languages. Block-based languages give you a carefully curated selection of commands to choose from, whereas text-based languages do not have the same type of constraints. Both technologies are be capable of producing identical images, does one cause more headaches for you when troubleshooting challenges? You are in command of the tool, not the other way around. Understand what you want to create and how the tools available can either make that process easier or more difficult. For me, I feel the most creative confidence in block-based languages because of my exposure through my work at the Tinkering Studio. However, my experience with text-based languages from contexts outside of the Exploratorium has me itching to get my hands on Processing to see firsthand the depth the software has to offer.

The Art of Computational Tinkering

The two weeks that Paula spent with us inspired me to see myself as a creative coder and to see code as a tinkerable, aesthetically-driven material. With TurtleArt, the code felt like an extension of the art piece, not solely a mechanism that created the design. And while it was nice to create both physical and digital art from code, the art of thinking computationally felt especially impactful in this activity. These creations are both rich with technology and aesthetics and I'm excited to continue exploring TurtleArt as a place to create images and think computationally.

Over the summer, we will continue our computational tinkering explorations into TurtleArt. One exciting new tool in the Learning Studio is the Glowforge. We learned during Paula's residency that it's possible to cut designs on this laser cutter by scanning the design directly from the iPad used to create it! I'm looking forward to playing more with the physical outputs of these computational creations as well as tinkering with the designs themselves.

This work was supported by a grant from Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation

Marble Machines revisited

17

May / 19

17 May / 19

Posted by Luigi

As Lianna mentioned yesterday, we have been exploring the idea and practice of expanding some core Tinkering Studio activities for an earlier audience, specifically thinking about how to create an environment and set of materials that would encourage exploration and investigation for 2-6 year old tinkerers.

Wooden tracks and a funnel being used as a marble run on a slab of pegboard — Tape and delicate construction in a workshop setting

Lots of kids and adults building marble runs on a giant pegboard wall — Marble Machines on the museum floor, unfacilitated

The first activity we tackled was Marble Machines, perhaps the oldest and most established of our core activities. We typically invite learners to explore this activity in professional development workshops, where we are able to dedicate a long period of time to it, have lots of expert facilitation on hand, and can offer an expanded palette of materials to work on daring and unusual ideas. On the other hand, we also have an unfacilitated area on the floor of the museum, outside of the Tinkering Studio proper, where visitors can immerse themselves (literally!) in a collaborative Marble Machine wall; however, the tradeoff there is that there is no facilitation, and the materials available for building are drastically reduced—the most conspicuous change being the absence of tape. How do you go about homing in on a set of materials that is appropriate for younger tinkerers while still allowing for a rich exploration of physical phenomena?

As our R&D process often goes, we started with what we had available, provided an expanded palette of materials and options, then noticed what worked and what didn’t, rich areas for refinement and further exploration, and then proceeded to simplify and eliminate options that were confusing or difficult to use.

Initially we set up a commercially available product called Haba blocks on a couple of custom-made table tops that were at the right height for younger visitors; we also added a few big blocks that were left over for Kazu Harada’s After Dark event a few months prior.

We noticed some interesting explorations, like comparisons of size and weight of balls, exploring the sound-making properties of some of the materials, and some problem solving when trying to make sense of some of the more complicated materials on offer.

But we also noticed that the Haba tracks presented an unexpected element of confusion for this age range: they are meant to be stacked flat on blocks, so the slope of the track is built into the block itself. This is counter-intuitive to a young learner, who intuitively wants to angle the track itself downward (and often very steeply so!) to make sure the ball runs down, and it resulted in very unstable and frustrating constructions.

In the end we decided to simplify, go big, and reduce the number of variables to focus investigations better.

We narrowed down the set of materials to:

Big and simple tracks—a combination of wooden tracks and long cardboard tubes cut lengthwise—available in three different lengths
Lots of Kazu Blocks™, which we produced with a standard base for all of them, and in three or four different heights
Three sizes of otherwise identical wooden balls
A couple of sets of stands with holes in them, a commercially available item from Kodokids, affectionately nicknamed Swiss Cheese
A few elbows to allow for 90 degree turns in construction. We initially made them form corrugated tubing but later switched to smooth plastic pipe connectors because balls kept getting stuck
A few metal bowls to hold marbles and provide an implied end goal for the marbles, should the kids choose to do so

We immediately saw improvements in the types of investigations kids were doing, the scale really encouraged immersive engagement with the activity and a broader range of ages could find ways of getting into goal setting and problem solving.

We also cut holes in the sides of the Kazu Blocks to encourage alternative uses for them, and indeed we saw quite a variety of solutions using the holes. It also made it possible to create small sandbags that could be dropped into the blocks to stabilize them if necessary.

And we occasionally found them used in ways that we couldn’t have anticipated but which nonetheless delighted us and the kids in the space.

It’s been an interesting process to be very intentional about the kinds of interactions and investigations that we want focus on with this activity, and how effective reducing the available materials has been to achieve that goal. Next I will talk about a couple of special elements that we created specifically for the lower end of our young tinkerers!

This project is supported through a generous grant from the Early Learning and Care Division at the California Department of Education.

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