The Tinkering Studio Blog » open make time

Chain Reactions at Open Make: Time

Ryan — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:00:26 +0000

At Open Make: Time, we experimented for the first time with small scale chain reactions, which for us means having two to four people work on their own personal contained contraption without linking all the tables together to form one giant Rube Goldberg machine. I think this activity has a lot of potential for an core activity in the Tinkering Studio as it allows for a lot of creative problems and solutions without the theatrical and time-intensive nature of a big event.

For the past open make, we made a connection to the theme of time with both the 60 second timer that we modified to start the ball rolling and emphasizing the ways that people figured out how to take a lot of time to get from one end of their space to the other. We’re planning on trying chain reactions again and the next open make, focusing both on the tools needed to accomplish the task and the entire chain reaction machine as a inefficient tool to accomplish something like turning on a light bulb or hammering a nail into a board.

We raided the restaurant supply store for materials like soup spoons, funnels, chop sticks, and strainers for people to build into their contraptions.

Part of the challenge was trying to devise ways to use tape, brackets, and straws to hold pieces in place while setting up the next piece in the chain.

This group used the timer and some dominoes to start off a reaction that would eventually pop the purple balloon.

I took videos of three finished chain reaction machines. They all took a long time to get all the elements aligned and came up with clever solutions for different problems. I’m looking forward to trying this again on the floor in the Tinkering Studio and at the Open Make: Tools event on March 17th.

Meet the Makers: Time

Ryan — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:08 +0000

Here are the interviews with the featured makers from last week’s event:

David Forbes makes nixie tube displays.

Roger Wood makes beautiful steampunk clocks.

Five Ton Crane (Sean Orlando, David Shulman, Alan Rorie) make a giant raygun gothic rocketship.

Julie Chen makes wonderful book art.

And of course, our very own Nicole Catrett makes all kinds of delightful exhibits for the Tinkering Studio (and cardboard bearskin rugs in her spare time)

Open Make: Time Photo Round-Up

Ryan — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:47:30 +0000

While the tinkering studio’s instagrams give one unique view of the open make event, if you really want to get a sense of all the activities, artists, and makers there that day, go ahead and check out the slideshow of photos that Exploratorium photographer Gayle shot last saturday. I really liked all the close-up shots of people’s hands working with tools, taking apart clocks, building floating objects, and wiring up alphanumeric displays. Tomorrow we’ll post the all the interviews from the featured makers.

Open MAKE: Time instagram roundup

Luigi — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:04:30 +0000

While waiting for our official photographs of last Saturday’s Open MAKE: Time, I thought it would be fun to share our now customary, internal instagram-off. Here are all the photos we took during the event. You can check them out below, and click here if you’re interested in our captions and explanations.

But most importantly, let us know in the comments: which photo is the winner in your opinion?

Large Scale Stop Motion at Open Make

Ryan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:19:14 +0000

At the Open Make event this weekend, we set up a big cardboard surface in the webcast studio and let people make stop motion animations by moving their body around the stage. We brought out pool noodles, boxes, boas, tennis balls, and other props and let people have about five minutes each to make a quick scene. In summer camp last year, we had a lot of fun making longer movies with more complicated plots, but I wasn’t sure if people would have a satisfying experience in a shorter amount of time. However, the fast time limit forced people to quickly get started and not think to hard about a grand cinematic vision. For most of the day there were a few groups waiting in the “on deck circle” so they got a chance to see how other groups turned discreet movements into an illusion of motion. Using the trick perspective of the camera aiming straight down, performers could appear to defy gravity, demonstrate amazing feats of strength, and glide smoothly across the floor. There were about forty scenes which we edited together to make a short film which will make you laugh, cry, and wish for a sequel.

Phone Drop

Kitundu — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:06:47 +0000

Preparing for OpenMake: Time we needed to test the buckets that people will use to explore how things fall. They automatically drop their contents once they reach 23 feet in the air. What better way to test them than by putting one of our phones at risk.

Almost Time for Open Make: Time

Ryan — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:10:32 +0000

As time flies, I bet you are thinking that it’s about time for another open make. And yes, the time has come for the latest installment of our time-honored tradition. If you have the time, we think it would be a great way to spend your time to come by the Exploratorium this Saturday, February 18th from 10:00 to 2:00 for a timeless program that will surely be one of the greatest of all time. Ok, my time is up, but take a time-out and read up on all the great activities, makers, artists and collaborators that will be here this time.

In case you didn’t get the hint, this month’s theme will be time. Five Featured Makers will be interviewed in the McBean Theater between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., talking about their work and process, and taking questions from the audience. The interview will also be webcast live!

* Five Ton Crane (represented by Alan Rorie, David Shulman, and Sean Orlando) will share their retro-futuristic large installation projects, such as their Raygun Gothic Rocket
* David Forbes will talk about his passion for making clocks and watches with nixie tubes and oscilloscopes.
* Julie Chen describes working with handmade books and printing techniques as a “time based medium.”
* Roger Wood, in addition to setting up a portable workshop in the Tinkering Studio, will talk about making clocks from recycled and found gadgets and mechanical wonders.
* Our very own Nicole Catrett built a homemade stroboscope, which has since become a permanent exhibit on the museum floor.

In the Tinkering Studio, we’ll explore time as a concept through stroboscope photography, an amazing panoramic timelapse by former Featured Maker Ken Murphy, as well as Roger Wood’s clock-making workshop. You’ll also be able to participate in a Sumi Ink Club collective drawing, and see a timelapse of it unfolding (you’ll be in it, and see yourself, if you participate!). In the skylight area, watch for some of our experiments with time: make a life-sized stop-motion animation, create your own metaphorical clock that expresses your own relationship with time, or dissect a real clock to literally find out what “makes it tick” and much more.

Roger has set up a workshop in the Tinkering Studio and is making a three-faced clock out of an old lamp.

Nicole mounted all of the innards of a dissected clock like a biological specimen for the cabinet of curiosities.

Ryoko drew out a ‘napkin’ sketch of a new activity where people will try to make objects fall as slow as possible.

I tried out the personal chain reactions in the tinkering studio today and have been thinking about what materials work best.

And in case you didn’t get enough of the “time sayings” we’ve collected as many as we could think of for the metaphorical clock activity. Hope all of you can make time for the event this weekend.

Mini Chain Reaction Prototypes

Ryan — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:49:00 +0000

For the Open MAKE: Time event, we’ve been doing some experiments with building chain reactions inspired by our favorite Japanese show – PythagoraSwitch. While our large-scale chain reactions allow for collaborative building and provide an opportunity for a dramatic conclusion, we wondered if smaller, individual contraptions might work as a more “everyday” activity in the Tinkering Studio. Although we’ve noticed that the pressure inherent in being a small part of a large series of events sometimes leads to powerful breakthroughs in thinking, self-contained reactions may offer ways for people to work at their own pace, try lots of different things, and really personalize their creations. For the open make event we are going to try to make chain reactions that start with kitchen timers going off and end with something hitting the snooze buttons on an alarm clock.

While the PythagoraSwitch chain reactions are astounding in their precision and complexity (and use of chipmunks), we’ve been studying the DVDs (which are unfortunately not available commercially in the US) to accumulate a vocabulary of the types of elements that they use again and again. Some of the pieces we’re going to try and figure out include catapults, teeter-totters, levers, and spring loaded launchers. In the experiments we’ve tried, we’ve found consistency to be elusive but it’s been fun to attempt to make the elements work together with some regularity. And we can console ourselves with the knowledge that even the indomitable Pythagoraswitch reactions probably took hundreds of takes before they got the perfect one.

Check out the video of our initial prototypes and come to Open MAKE: Time for this and other time themed activities.