At the past open make event, we tried out the large scale animation activity again, but this time added some tool themed props to the mix. Dax Tran-Caffee, cardboard artist, mask maker, performer and overall swell guy, made some absolutely beautiful, fully articulated, giant cardboard tools for people to incorporate into their animations.

With help from Dax and other facilitators, visitors used the scissors, hammer, gears, wrench, and other cardboard pieces in creative ways to make some great short movies. We took all the stop motion clips from the event and edited them together to make one blockbuster film for your viewing pleasure.

• Our activity set Circuit Boards, which allows visitors to freely connect power sources to a variety of outputs, switches, potentiometers, and sensors
• The much more facilitation-heavy Sew a circuit activity. The twist here was that the facilitators were a group of museum educators from Arkansas who were participating in a workshop with us at the same time as we were having the Open MAKE event, and had just been introduced to the activity two days before
• And finally, an activity in its very infancy, in which we were trying to figure out how to engage the public with using conductive paint to make circuits by drawing them on paper and connecting batteries and LEDs on a flat surface.

The setup for the activities was really helpful, in that it encouraged the flow of traffic from the most accessible activity to the more experimental one naturally, so that you would move further in the “inner sanctum” as your investigation became trickier and more demanding. The amount of space and seats was also perfectly suited to the amount of people we could actually effectively facilitate, so that when the space felt full, we were still able to manage that amount of public.

Circuit boards have now matured to a point where very minimal facilitation is needed for the activity to flow and visitors to stay engaged and keep exploring possibilities. This allows us to offer a more approachable first experience with a subject that can be intimidating, like electrical circuits, and hopefully entice some visitors to take it a step further and try their hand at making circuits with conductive thread.

Sewing circuits. This is where our workshop participants proved their worth! We introduced the activity to them only two days before, and had them make their first LED-powered cuffs.

Despite initial reservations about how challenging the activity would prove to visitors, they really threw themselves into facilitating it, and I saw scores of visitors walk away with a proudly worn cuff.

My focus was a completely new activity tentatively called Drawn Circuits: the idea is to use conductive ink to draw functional circuits on paper. I think what was most important about it was considering it an opportunity to prototype and explore an idea together with the public, rather than trying to offer a fully worked out activity. With that perspective in mind, I am happy with how the experiment went.

We ended up using paint from Bare Conductive because it is much easier to use with a simple paintbrush. We had previously tried copper paint, which is a much better conductor, but is very tricky to apply, basically needing to be squeezed out in a thin bead with a henna applicator. While cool to do, it was really messy and hard to avoid clumps and accidental blobs, and we quickly decided that painting was a much more approachable way to realize your vision.

Some visitors completely surprised us by using pencils as paintbrushes to get an even thinner line. One major disadvantage of all conductive paints is that they only become conductive when dry, so there is often a long wait time before the design can even be tested.

This didn’t stop visitors most of the time, and many people left their designs at the activity table to dry while they explored the rest of the event, then came back to collect them and find out whether their circuit worked. This is not ideal, as it’s best to test out your concept before you put a lot of effort into a design only to see it fail, but because we were right next to other tables that were offering ways of creating an understanding of circuits, it worked out. Another aspect that helped was that we really limited the age of participants to only 10 years and older.

Adam and I, while prototyping the activity, kept repeating this mantra: “Keep the main thing the main thing”, and so in an effort to avoid descent into decoration for decoration’s sake we limited drawing implements to black ink pens and regular pencils. I was surprised at how effective that was: the focus of the activity really stayed with creating something that would work as a circuit, with the decoration working in service of that.

Other interesting aspects were the fact that toe tags proved to be very attractive, and that it is possible to make switches by bending the paper, but it’s not easy to figure out on your first try, so the slow nature of the activity really hinders that.

Most of all, I was struck by how fascinated people were by the mere existence of conductive paint. Even people who did not end up making anything were interested in talking about how the paint worked, and immediately had ideas of how it could be used. I could almost see their mind being blown and their horizons expanded, and that was cool.

We set up in the stage area of the museum with a circular communal table for materials in the middle and four tables surrounding it for cutting, fusing, machine sewing, and hand sewing.

At the cutting table we provided “patterns” to stand in for common tools that people might want to make holders for. There were also patterns for spoons, forks, chopsticks, safety glasses, and paint brushes.

My favorite moments throughout the day were seeing collaborations between visitors. They shared ideas on different ways to layer the plastic, gave tips on using the sewing machines, and brainstormed on what kinds of tool rolls they could make. One of our first visitors to try it out brought back his whole boy scout troop to try it as well! He made a second tool holder for himself, and took on teaching others how to get started.

This was one of my first opportunities to use sewing machines with visitors. It was great to see visitors grow in confidence as they went from never having used a sewing machine before to deftly sewing seams. Parents and kids spent a lot of time working together to learn and relearn how to sew. One challenge that arose was that sewing machines can be tricky. It took a dedicated facilitator to help out and troubleshoot at just two machines. Occasionally they would jam or come unthreaded unexpectedly. Next time I would use bigger spools of thread and have lots of pre-threaded bobbins so the machines could sew longer with less interruption. I was thankful that visitors were really patient with the technical difficulties.

Plastic fusing has so many possibilities with what you can create and I hope it makes another appearance at OpenMAKE: Trash!

One of the activities we showed them was light painting tool construction. We have only tried this idea out a few times, so they not only were getting exposure to a open make activity but also helping us get some of the kinks out before the event. I was impressed by their creative use of materials, ability to problem solve, and general sense of fun as they made a series of beautiful paintings. We made some discoveries that will inform our materials choices, environmental elements and facilitation strategies on the big day.

This painting was made by cutting a ping-pong ball in half and putting a LED in the middle. The 3D image of the ball is pretty amazing.

It was fun to explore the difference between the larger gumdrop LEDs and the smaller sharper light sources.

We used a flashlight to create exposures that showed people as well as their light painting tool traces.

Here is the entire set from our hour or so of light painting explorations and next week we’ll post the results from the light painting booth at the open make event on Saturday.

We are experimenting with applying conductive paint with henna applicators to make light-up LED cards.

One of the coolest old tools that we are planning to dissect and turn into new accessories is an antique adding machine.

Walter made a awesome poster for his station where people will match wits with the intellectual heavyweights of the avian world.

Tim tested out a buzzer game that Raha made with the parts from an old cordless drill.

The tool workshop is up and running in the Tinkering Studio and TIm and Nicole have been experimenting with trying different ways of teaching people wood and metal tool use.

Hope you can join us for open make: tools this Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00.

Throughout this month of tools, one thing that we have thought about a lot is whether it’s better to teach people tool basics before they have specific project in mind, so they can see the possibilities of what tools can do. Or should we introduce tools as needed once a project is underway giving people a meaningful task to work on with the tool. I can see the advantages to both, depending on the personality and needs of the learner, but for me looking back, I think that I’ve gained the most skill at a tool when I already had something that I wanted to make and could use the new tool to accomplish my goal. Now, I can’t wait to try more complicated projects on the sewing machine, but as a first attempt I’m pretty proud of my picnic-ready silverware/wine opener folding pouch.

At the open make: tools event this Saturday, you can come and use a sewing machine to make your own personalized holder for whichever tools you love the most.

On Wednesday we focused on woodworking and showed people how to drill a hole, hammer a nail, use a saw, and drive a screw. To let people practice with the tools, we suggested that they spelled out their initials or first names with hardware. This gave them plenty of practice using the tools and allowed them to gain a sense of proficiency over the course of their project.

We used the cordless drill to make pilot holes and drive screws.

Once we taught kids the proper technique and stayed close by for a few tries, they became fairly self-sufficient at using that particular tool.

Old pros like Tim and Nicole offered many tips and tricks to new learners (one safety tip that we overlooked in this photo is to always tie long hair back when working with tools, we’ll have hair ties next time – thanks Janis).

After making their letters, they could saw off their chunk of wood with a jig saw.

Everyone made something that took a little bit of work that they could be proud of in the end.

On Thursday we switched it over to a metal working workshop and tried out stamps, punches, drills, and rivets. Each person made their names again, either by stamping letters or by making dots or holes. Later on in the day we started experimenting with the letters as decorative elements and emoticons. It was another fun experience and we noticed that working with metal was a bit more unique than woodworking as it allowed visitors to experience some brand new tools.

We got some more pounding surfaces to cut down on the noise factor.

It was fun looking at letters as shapes to be used for usual purposes.

Explainers got in on the action as well making personalized badges.

It will be fun to see what Nicole and Tim come up with for the next iteration of teaching metal and wood tool use.

Once again I tried embedding LEDs in glue sticks to create an eerily diffuse quality of light. These two paintings were made with a red and white light embedded in a spinning glue stick that was held straight toward the camera in the first photo and oriented sideways in the other.

Next, I took the idea to a more extreme place with five lights arranged in a rainbow pattern that spun on a hobby motor.

One of the challenges we’ve encountered is that the two motors we’ve tried so far are either super fast or super slow. So I set up a few lights on a cricket computer motor which I thought might spin at an intermediate speed. It worked pretty well and the motor and battery also all fit together to a make a more compact package then some of the more unwieldy hobby motor setups.

Blinking LEDs make interesting semi-circle shapes.

On Friday, Sebastian and I tried some experiments with a large lazy susan. Combining the rotation of the surface with the spinning of motors made for light traces that showed compound motion and cycloid patterns.

One really cool thing that we could see with the camera is the difference in the pattern we got from spinning the turntable clockwise versus counter-clockwise

Sebastian introduced light painting with iphones to create what looked like an otherworldly glowing donut emanating from the device.

And the last “tool” we made brought back the glue stick (with two LEDs), but this time it spun on a string like a pendulum to create another cycloid pattern without the spinning disc.

We”ll do some more experiments with light painting and tool-making this week as we continue to prepare for open make event.

Anyway, I opened the plastic cover.

There I found batteries (in the brown papers), a big motor, gears, some rings, a chuck, a switch, a charger, a few wires, etc..

I could easily disassemble everything EXCEPT this chuck. It got rings and gears, and I had no clue where to try taking them apart. Everything seemed to be very rigid. After consulting with Antonio and Tim, I could find a big screw hiding inside in the middle of the chuck jaws, then I unscrewed it.

Better lighting will be definitely needed for this activity. Also, to me, a small flash light was helpful to find the hiding screw.

After unscrewing the hiding screw, I basically hammered each part out. For that, a vise, a big fat screw driver and a little knowledge of principle of leverage were very helpful.

Look at the three chuck jaws (right photo)!
It was really fun to get to know that almost anything can be taken apart even if they don’t look like disassemblable.

These are all the parts from the hand drill. Beautiful!

Ok, so, dissecting was fun, but where could we go from here?
What would you do after dissecting tools?

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… this is my first attempt to make an art piece from the parts taken apart.

You can also make a cute badge like this using some parts.

Or, you can make a cool necklace like this out of a reversing switch!

What would you make out of these parts?
We will continue exploring, messing around, and playing with the idea of dissection. Stay tuned for updates!

On Friday, in the learning studio, a few of us experimented with LEDs, hobby motors, glue sticks, power drills and more to make a few tool prototypes. We took inspiration from past projects like simple hand held LEDs that that Walter made, Nicole’s sewn circuit glove and some of Antonio’s previous experiments. Here are a few of the tools we created and the light paintings we made with them.

The first tool that I made was a cardboard circle with a red and green LED that spun on a hobby motor. Depending on how fast we moved the tool and the angle at which we held it, the pattern looked very different.

For the next iteration I stuck a LED into a glue stick to make a spinning implement with a more diffused and eerie quality of light.

Adam spent some time working on light painting tool that would mirror the movement of the chaotic pendulum exhibit. It didn’t entirely work as planned but showed a cool pattern that blended regular movement and chaos.