This week kicked off the first session of summer trainings with the High School Explainers. We led three workshops on squishy circuits on different days hoping that as many Explainers as possible could try out this activity. The workshops started with the challenge of using the playdough and batteries to turn on an LED and then progressed to free exploration with all the materials. As we’ve noticed with Summer Camp and with visitors, the basic materials that people choose remain fairly similar, but the approaches to how people use them are varied. Some Explainers took the problem-solving approach, wanting to discover how many lights they could turn on, how long a wire of playdough they could make, or figuring out how much voltage was lost to the dough. Others made sculptural creations that were fun, whimsical, and inventive. A few brave souls even tried testing the 9V batteries on their tongues to make sure they still worked (talk about a squishy circuit).
Stay tuned for the next round of workshops with the High School Explainers!
Not taking those through airport security, I hope.