THE TINKERING STUDIO

THE TINKERING STUDIO

 

Clothespin Connectors with LEGO at Home
03

Sep / 20

03 Sep / 20

Posted by Steph

Guest post by Casey Federico

Now that our dining room table is everyone’s work/school/life desk, we share more than ever before. One of the pleasures of working with the Tinkering Studio, is that my daughters - currently six and nine - get to look over my shoulder and engage with my work everyday. Last week my six-year-old noticed this video as I was searching the website:

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“Mama, we can make that! We have those wooden things!” I thought she meant chopsticks, but once she had a chance to grab materials from our wall of materials, she chose tiny clothespins.

 

I immediately thought of our experience with the STEAM Starters pilot sites where clothespins were a favorite light play material! My daughter and I got together to try out some connections between the clothespins and LEGO. Here was the process we liked best:

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Tape is my daughter’s usual tool of choice, but it didn’t make a strong connection, and blocked the LEGO connections. So we used a low heat hot glue gun.

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Because our clothespins were so mini, the connection worked best on LEGO tiles with flat ends.

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Once covered with glue, we added the clothespin.

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The first thing she added her connectors to were paper cut-outs as a way of labeling each floor of “la casa de Violet” - an evolving LEGO creation. 

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Other clothespins held “flames.” These flames are protecting a sleeping hero (and her hanging wardrobe).

 

After a few days of play with the new clothespin connectors, the girls added wire and string to the clothespins, and created a few ziplines, like this one:

  

The nine-year-old made her own adaptations, adding clothespins to Technic pieces, as well. Here is one with a winding yarn addition:

Eager to see how these connectors keep evolving in our LEGO play!

Creative Connections and Pizza Savers
07

Aug / 20

07 Aug / 20

Posted by Steph

I want to share this quick idea for creating connectors for cardboard tube construction. If you like pizza and derders, you may like this mashup. I was already missing my daily dose of Leo Villareal’s Buckyball installation looming large at the Exploratorium entrance (above), when I saw this 3D-printed connector in an Instructables post about how to Turn Toilet Rolls Into Construction Toys: 

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These plastic 3D-printed connectors reminded me of pizza savers (those plastic pieces that safeguard the top of the pizza from the pizza box). I don't have a 3D printer at home, but I do have recycled toilet paper tubes and a taste for pizza. So I tried making a version of these cardboard tube connectors.

I found that there's variation in pizza savers, and I use the triangle-shaped version for these explorations. There's also variation in toilet paper tube roll diameter, which led to tighter or looser connections. I experimented with both tape and hot glue to combine pieces and make different types of connectors. Tape was ideal for creating hinges and adding movement. Here (right) I connected two triangular pizza savers with masking tape for each hinge. 

 

Hot glue made for more stable pieces. I decided to make 3-piece connectors so that I could try to build my own version of a Buckyball sculpture. 

 

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My dad is a chemical engineer, and would want me to note that this is not actually a complete representation of Buckminsterfullerene, but I ran out of toilet paper tubes.

These three-part and tape hinge connectors are just two ideas for cardboard tube connectors. What other types of connections could you create? 

Webinar: Making & Tinkering at Home & at School
13

May / 20

13 May / 20

Posted by Lianna

We love hosting professional development workshops in the Tinkering Studio. Lately we've found ourselves having to adapt our in-person offerings into new online formats. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of co-presenting an NAEYC-sponsored webinar with our colleauge Cate Heroman on the topic of Making & Tinkering at Home & at School. We shared how both educators and parents can support young learners to tinker with different phenomena using materials you might find at home. There were over 14,000 registered participants for the day-of presentation! If you weren't able to join live, you can find the archived webinar and PDF handouts here.

 

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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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