Monday, May 30, 2016

Challenges with e-textiles

We had our first experiment with e-textiles in the Learning Lab this winter after school. The kids were to first design something with pencil and paper, include a component that would light up, and then design the circuit.  After completing the design on paper and pencil, they would cut it out in felt and sew on all the components.  Here's an example:



There were so many challenges with this project. First there was the design challenge. When given a piece of paper and asked to draw a figure, almost all of the students were completely stopped in their tracks. They simply couldn't come up with anything. We made suggestions such as a fish, bat, robot, etc. In the end almost all of them ended up copying one of our designs.

Designing the circuit also proved to stump almost all the students. In retrospect, I should have had an entire after school class devoted to experimenting with simple circuits as it was clear the kids didn't understand how to connect the battery to the LEDs.

The challenges continued when the students then needed to cut out their paper and then their felt. Many of them (4th and 5th grade) didn't have the manual dexterity to use scissors. We had to do the cutting for several of them.

I quickly realized the next steps would also be a problem--threading the needle and sewing. One girl had sewn before, but the rest of them quickly had difficulty threading their needle, knotting the thread, and sewing a straight stitch. I untangled many, many attempts.

This was a frustrating afternoon for many of these kids. For some, a lack of resiliency, made them give up almost before they began each step.

This project which combined art, technology, and basic craft skills proved to be really, really challenging. If I were to do it again, I would offer it only to middle school students and make it a multi-session program where we worked on each of the components more slowly.  

To be honest, I'm not sure e-textiles will come back to the Learning Lab anytime soon. They components are expensive and, while there is a TINY connection to our collections and history, I can think of other more engaging activities that help us reach our goals.








Supplies:
Coin cell battery holder
LED
Conductive thread
Felt
Needles
Scissors
Paper & pencils



Monday, May 23, 2016

Sometimes low-tech activities are the most engaging

We added a building challenge to the Learning Lab for our general public. This proved to be popular. Every day we would find new structures left behind. Here's what we did:

Materials:
1" cubes, craft sticks, 3 oz cups

Challenge #1: Build a structure with one cube as the base.
Challenge #2: Using any size base, build the tallest possible structure
Challenge #3: Build a structure with just one cup as the base
Challenge #4: Feats of Balance. Make something stick out in an impressive way!




One day I went around the corner and discovered that this visitor had managed to get every cup stacked.


Visitors of all ages really enjoyed this challenge!


Again, low-tech challenges that visitors could easily grasp have been the most engaging for our general public.







Monday, May 9, 2016

Welcoming the general public to the Learning Lab--keeping it simple!

Our new learning lab is located right in the lobby of the museum. In thinking through what to do with the learning lab during the summer months we are open, we realized that unless we were offering specific family maker day activities, hosted by staff, we needed to come up with inviting activities that visitors could immediately grasp without help--our staffing is just too limited to have someone at the tables all the time.

We had learned from visiting other museum maker spaces that complex tinkering activities offered in spaces without staff don't easily engage visitors. Our answer was to set out simple machine models with short experiments for each model.  Families stopped by throughout the summer to try them out.


Here's an example for one of the experiments. We adapted these from the instructions that came with the models.


We were pleased and surprised by how engaging this activity was. Our museum is filled with complex machines. It seemed a natural link to then offer visitors an "Eye Spy" sheet to see if they could connect their simple machines experiments to the complex machines on the exhibit floor. Making connections between technology, history, and our collections is a goal we continuously explore.











Monday, May 2, 2016

Connecting our history to our tinkering programs



The American Precision Museum is a National Historic Landmark and engineering heritage site where we seek to connect history to technology and engineering. Our telegraph project accomplished this goal by connecting our magnetism tinkering workshops to our Civil War exhibit, Arming the Union.



We used these instructions.

Materials included:
Hammers
Nails
Wood Blocks
Telephone wire
Wire Strippers
Batteries
Perforated Metal Hanger Strips


We also offered this program in the summer for a Family Maker Day.  It provided a nice challenge for both adults and children. Everyone was excited when they were able to make their telegraphs work! 



This program provides a nice connection between history and technology. It was here at the American Precision Museum where new technological innovations had an impact on the Civil War.