The Exploratorium's Learning Studio blog | A workshop for tinkering with technology, science, and art » contraption

Chain reaction videos: explainer style!

Luigi — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:12:22 +0000

As promised, here are two videos showing the contraptions built by the explainers during their training with us. Cool stuff!

Chain Reaction training

Luigi — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:03:59 +0000

In preparation for the upcoming Maker Faire booth, in which we will be hosting a community-built chain reaction event, we had the pleasure of trying out the activity with the Exploratorium explainers. Due to their busy schedule and the need to have the museum floor staffed, we had to split the workshop in two days, with half the explainers doing the activity on one day, and the other half on the next.

In this activity, we will ask participants to build a section of a collective chain reaction; each section will then join with and trigger the next one, so that at the end of a building session, we will be able to set the contraption off at one end, and it will work its way (flawlessly, I’m sure!) to the end.

As always, the depth of thought and care that this group of educators brings to any activity they participate in shined through, both in the actual construction of the chain reaction elements, and in the discussion we had afterwards.

Now we are definitely looking forward to Maker Faire in a month!

Here are some photographs from both days:

Click image for Day 1 gallery!

Click image for Day 2 gallery!

Marble elevators

Luigi — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:53:06 +0000

In a parallel line of development, we are playing around with marbles and chain reaction elements. One of the problems that we’re constantly facing is how to work against gravity. It’s easy enough for a marble to roll down an incline, but how do you bring it back up? Here are two solutions Walter came up with.

Chain Reaction contraption

Luigi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:51:20 +0000

We (Karen, Mike, and Luigi) explored cause and effect today as we started a two-day build of a metaphorical chain reaction. Using Bruno Munari’s drawings as inspiration (including his drawing of a machine for sniffing artificial flowers), we organized the work tables into a snake-like chain for the group to build their metaphorical machines. Ultimately, these will be linked together and set off as the finale of the workshop.

Getting ideas from past projects, a few new building materials, and a variety of evocative objects that we revealed especially for this activity, the monks jumped right in and started designing and building. There is little hesitation with this group as they each gathered a wide variety of materials and carried out a series of rapid prototypes – making observations, and discussing each of these with their partners.

Ultimately, ideas began to form, and challenges emerged that seemed too compelling to ignore. Each pair of monks made good progress in the short two and a half hour session, and it was difficult to get them to take a tea break (and we were quite late for lunch).

The ownership of ideas seems strong with this group, but, the ownership of the artifacts created during previous activities seems less important. Past project contraptions (like the automata, and Mylar Reflection machines) have been quickly incorporated into this final activity. Often, the machines from past activities are dismantled in order to utilize a cam, linkage, or machine system in their current projects. We were a bit surprised when we learned that they were taking apart machines that were not theirs to begin with, and when we asked the monks if this was OK, they looked at us with a sly smile and said “of course”. There seems to be little need for them to own the artifacts of their learning, and as one mentioned “we carry our thinking and ideas with us much easier than our contraptions”.