Month: August 2013

I’m happy to say that we at McPherson were able to get our Connected Messages mural completed with time to spare (in large part due to the kids borrowed from the Summer program who were very excited about the idea that they could make more than one box!).

The library was able to allow me the use of a small room downstairs which came in very handy in organizing the groups without all the interruption and distractions of the main area.  On my longer days I was able to rotate several groups who were very excited to participate (especially after seeing that the other kids who made boxes for the mural also got to take with them a light-up “kindness card” once they were finished).

It was great to see the pile of completed boxes grow and grow each day.   Getting the younger kids to get as colorful as possible was not much of a challenge, but the older kids…that was another story.  It was interesting to see that the younger ones drawing anything and everything. The older kids had the distinct impression that drawing and writing a list of names are the same thing. Which in some regards they wouldn’t be entirely mistaken especially when the entire neighborhood is covered in one form of graffiti or another. So I was happy to see them write their lists all day long if they wanted to so long as they did it in a colorful way. Bam, everybody was happy!

I had initially attempted to put the boxes onto the control board as they were created, but I soon realized that doing it that way wasn’t the best.  So once all 64 boxes were made I was able to apply them in a very stable way. After discussing the attachment of the boxes with the other Maker’s I learned that using an additional loop of the copper conductive tape at each connection point not only helped with maintaining a quality connection, but also to keep the boxes stable on the board.

I also found that some of the connections on the traces required additional copper tape. Luckily copper conductive tape was in abundance so that problem was handled in no time.

Once all the boxes were up on the board and operational I thought it’d be fun to decorate the rest of the board that was still exposed. I mean, the traces look pretty cool and all but not very festive. With a couple large bags of googly-eyes, colorful pieces of paper, and a few bottles of glitter-glue me and another kid set to work adding as much eye-candy as we could. And I think it worked out rather well!

We got out a laptop and allowed a bunch of the kids to go nuts turned the boxes on and off at their will. It was nice to see that even the ones who had minimal interest in participating in creating a box were pretty excited to be able to turn their own box on or off. Even if that excitement lasted for no longer than a few minutes and they soon were off like ping-pong balls looking for the next exciting thing to enter into their field of vision.

So it only took the whole summer to finally get around to busting out the art-bots. Sadly I didn’t get as over-the-top as I had originally wanted to at the beginning of the summer after having explored it with the possibility box I received from MakerEd. It remained as simple as it was in the beginning: take a dollar store tooth brush and attach three markers to it via rubber bands and let them go nuts on a piece of paper. I only had two working electric tooth brushes so the supplies were limited, but as I found out quickly, the supplies were ample.

It didn’t take much to gather a crowd with this project. Seeing a handful of markers jut around in circles on a piece of paper apparently unaided is definitely something to be curious about. Seeing two of these going is something to sit down and get involved with.

Now, I knew that the art-bots would be making some interesting images, but what I didn’t quite expect was that having two art-bots going at the same time going at a particularly sad 3rpms would bring such excitement from the kids at the library who watched, perched on the edge of their seats. The spark that really ignited their fascination with the bots was when they bumped into each other. “Ooo! That one just hit that one!” was a shouted a lot. It soon became a table-top Battle Royale of art-bots.

The kids would sit around the circular table watching the spinning bots creep slowly towards each other and occasionally make contact. A winner would be decided, and the loser would be torn about and replaced with new colors…a new challenger entering the arena.

Now I would expect the kind of excitement I was getting if these were spinning much faster or maybe they were colliding and knocking each other over in some exciting fashion, but it was hypnotic sitting there watching these things gyrate. It was also just plain bazar that this went on for seven hours. Seven hours of watching two electric tooth brushes rotate at incredibly slow speeds bumping into one another about once every minute. Certain color combinations were given names. Like some kind of ridiculous WWE championship we watched the gladiators bump it out.

This was a really fun, really basic project that the kids simply loved. It was different from a lot of the other projects that we worked on this summer because all it was was strapping markers to an electric toothbrush. It didn’t involve abstract thought. It didn’t involve any dexterity in particular. It could be made by anyone, whether you had construction skills or not. A lot of times I felt that the projects that I tried to engage the kids in were met with skepticism and doubt that they could actually create them, gauging their own skills against my own. For this project I was happy to see that when they gathered around they didn’t see me…they saw a simple device that anyone could produce with two dollars and a couple minutes of time. There were no excuses with this project. It was fun, it was easy, and it was cheap. And best of all it wasn’t intimidating in any way…just plain old fun and enjoyment.

We gave invisible ink (aka: lemon juice) a shot one afternoon. We got quite a lot of participants all sitting around a table with bowls of lemon juice and q-tips for writing on piles of white paper. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of “invisible ink” which to a child’s mind seems like some kind of exotic and mysterious craft that could be used for all sorts of nefarious little transactions amongst friends.

The lemon soaked sheets of paper shuffled around the long table so much that it soon became evident why invisible ink can be a bit of a silly idea when the kids realized that a dry piece of paper looks just like the next hundred pieces of dry white paper! A lot of grabbing and yelling “this one is mine!” or “No, wait! This one is mine!” floated around the small room we were working in, deep within the basement of a library (where in my mind secret teachings in enigmatic writing should always reside).

The papers all became so disheveled that each one put under the iron for visualization were a surprise to everyone. No one knew who’s was next! It was really fun to see the excitement and wonder about a project that ultimately is rather anticlimactic when your imagination betrays you when the mystery message you jotted down onto your clean white sheet of printer paper is revealed by the heat of the iron when the lemon juice oxidizes and your message “Hi mommmy” hasn’t been some how transformed into The Da Vinci Code.

     I remember doing this project when I was really young, too, and I remember how it felt to see something you’ve created become visible through the wondrous and supernatural powers of a household iron. I was glad to be able to share in and pass on the experience with the kids at the library and only hope that they remember and do the same some day.

After several weeks of one hour sessions working with e-textiles we finally got it all finished up.

In the beginning we were concerned about only have enough materials for ten kids to participate in this project. A sign-up sheet was put out and filled up pretty quickly. Week after week, though, we saw the numbers dwindle and dwindle. This drop-off in participation was not for lack of enthusiasm for e-textiles, but for simple enthusiasm for summer and a child’s desire to be un-constrained by schedules and routine. I remember my own grade-school summers when forgetting what day it was was par for the course (save for Saturday mornings…Cartoon time!).

But in the end, the ones who stuck it out got to see their creations come to stuffy life. From the start it seemed as if the steps for each week were almost painfully slow and simplistic, but then when we got started it became very evident to me that these steps were very much necessary.

Some of the steps seemed a little counter-intuitive or perhaps more complicated than need be. Whether they are or not I haven’t quite decided even after everything has been completed. The steps were to basically first get the circuit completed and stitched on to the felt front and back of the creature before stuffing it. This would have the conductive thread stitched across the surface of the creature. Doing it this way makes it easier to see just how the circuit works for the creator as well as to others who want to know just how it works. But on an aesthetic level I thought it would have been better to stitch the front and back together and stuff it first. Then have the conductive thread go directly through the middle of the creature, in effect hiding the conductive thread. That’s the way that I put mine together, but I have a lot of experience making stuffed animal-things so doing this was pretty straight forward to me. I got the impression that if the conductive threads were hidden within the creatures the kids would have quickly become confused about just how the circuit is working.

In the end, whether the stuffed monsters were functional or not, it came down to creating accessories for the creatures to wear. With a real and clear objective for the projects (creating a stuffed animal with light up eyes) sitting down and working toward that end appeared to be seen as real work for the kids participating. But when they were able to invent accessories and personalize their creations it felt less like work and a lot more like fun, independent creation.