This past week has been pretty rad for us up at the Village! Earlier in the week Camp started so we had a few Squishy Circuitry tinkering sessions. It was awesome to watch the new makers (camp kids) testing the limits of the play-doh and insulating dough. All mixed in was the comic relief that the insulating dough could be used as snot balls to startle Ms. Brenda and some mischief around the second floor with the Piezzo buzzers.

What spawned from our exploration was a combination of our Magnet-Maze Game and Squishy Circuits! More fun, anyone can make something, and less gnarly foil paper-cuts. Jacob and a few of our morning kids have been hanging around after camp to work on these little Mazes.

 

Just observing the makers get direct feedback from players and be able to manipulate the play-space in real time is unreal, and much easier than our prior paper/foil prototypes. It allows for much quicker problem solving and less physical error(again our foil tape isn’t great). So now where do we see this going next? Well, we’ve run into two issues:

1. We need to find a way to save these Mazes, currently photographing and printing is our only method.
2. Having a phone out and a person keeping score isn’t fun for a one player game(or my phone).

So an easier method of containing the dough(and still being able to use magnets) or a better quick-start documentation guide/poster may help. Also, we need a scoreboard! A quick thought would be to use Scratch and the Makey Makey! The latter being one of the more interesting trinkets I have to the kids. This might just be our potential little entry into the Makey Makey Contest!

 

To wrap up, we had a paper circuitry workshop the other day. At first glance the materials led to a very regimented process and not a lot of creativity or individuality in each campers circuit. However, we tail ended our brief explorations with different sensors and potentiometers into how you actually wire them up. A quick demo of how to tin some wire and solder an FSR to it led to Jacob and others showing each-other how to pair up some LEDs! Again totally rad, a lot has happened this week, I’m excited to see we move along with our Magnetic Mazes and Connected Messages.