We brought the materials for more activities to the Tinkering Studio Dhahran than we could facilitate at any one time so that we could change up the workshop tables if we wanted to try something new. Over the past few weeks we’ve introduced the facilitators to cardboard automata and sewn circuits and they wouldn’t let us leave the country without at least trying the last activity we brought – squishy circuits.

The first step we had to do was make the insulating dough. Aziz, who had come in early to help out in any way possible, gamely started kneading the sugar dough.

We cleared off a corner of the electricity board table and planned on just getting a few kids started with squishy circuits explorations. Luckily, one of our more dedicated young tinkerers, Abdulrahman, came and sat down with the materials and started messing around.

Since the four of us from the USA are trying to learn how to speak and write a little Arabic, we tried out sculpting our names in play dough and used the LEDs for the dots that are part of the script. Neamah, one of our facilitators, molded her name, lit up the letters, and compared the results to her name tag.

Abdulrahman continued the trend by expertly lighting up his name as well. It’s a fun challenge because you really have to think about where the electricity is flowing though the letters and how you can create the breaks with insulating dough to make the LEDs turn on. It looks beautiful as well.

I hope that in the coming weeks our group of facilitators here will continue to play with squishy circuits both on their own and with visitors. Once again, I am inspired by their enthusiasm and thoughtfulness as they share new activities in the space.

[A tirade about why I think creativity is an overused term that doesn't define anything useful is perhaps better left to a separate post...]

Most of the time we like to structure our tinkering with circuits around an activity we call Circuit Boards. At first glance, it could seem like a trivial implementation of a simple idea: put a bunch of simple basic circuitry components on a table with some alligator clips, and let people figure out how to wire them up together.

But something about the way we offer those materials and which materials we offer allows for what Mitchell Resnick calls “wide walls” (you can try many different things) and “high ceiling” (you can get very complex with what you try), while still keeping the “low threshold” that means almost anyone can play with it. Here are some recent example of things people made with circuit boards that I think would meet most people’s definition of “creative.”

Dominic spent about 45 minutes playing with circuits at Maker Faire. After figuring out how to wire a switch, he started hooking up many batteries together. I just made sure he knew not to short them and didn’t use any 9V batteries, but let him explore what could have seemed like a somewhat fruitless (if mildly dangerous) exercise. 25 minutes later he came to find me because he wanted to show me what he had made.

This was in a very different context: at a professional museum workers’ conference in Minneapolis, MN we hosted a session on the “making” culture and its place in a museum setting. I brought Circuit Boards and Squishy Circuits for people to play with, and this young fellow made a rather complex circuit where the motor is continuously powered, while the buzzer is only activated when a switch is closed, then made the motor’s motion part of the switch.

And finally, I think Squishy Circuits takes the creativity quotient to yet another level, adding the possibility of expressing a measure of personal aesthetic within the circuit that you design. We have not played around long enough with this to collect a large number of particularly creative outcomes, but I think this clown face with a functioning propeller hat and light-up nose definitely qualifies.

I think some of the qualities that allow for this sort of deep and innovative interactions to happen are:

• The components are recognizable and familiar elements: lightbulbs in simple holders, batteries, alligator clips. They communicate what they are, for the most part, and don’t look “fancy” or a specialty item you couldn’t buy at RadioShack.
• The activity is arranged around a central, round table, with no physical demarcation between facilitators (or “experts”) and participants. The whole exploration happens in an atmosphere of shared investigation, rather than a teacher/learner dichotomy. This aspect in particular is hugely important, I think, as something like circuitry tends to bring out the “know it all” in engineer types and electrically-minded people…
• There are no instructions and no clearly stated goal to the activity. There is no challenge to meet, which means there is no intimidation factor (other than whatever preconceived notion people might have about their own affinity for circuits). But it also means that there is no point at which you can say “I’ve done it.” If the goal is to wire up a house with a switch, once you’ve achieved that you tend to stop searching for something else you might try, but if there is no specific thing the activity asks you to accomplish, you become your own navigator. This tends to actually take people deeper into an investigation than an externally imposed goal.
• The materials allow for unexpected and serendipitous things to happen. On the way to figure out how to put a switch into a circuit you might find out what a short circuit is, or randomly make a reverse switch that turns on when it’s open instead of closed. All of a sudden, what you weren’t trying to do might become much more compelling and cause deeper exploration than what you were trying to accomplish.
• Finally, I can’t overemphasize the importance of thoughtful and skilled facilitation. Even with all these scaffolding measures in place, tinkering with circuits is quite the frustrating experience at times, and the right word or action at just the right time makes all the difference between giving up and getting that nice jolt of insight.

Lately in the Tinkering Studio we’ve been thinking about how to translate the work that we do in the museum to settings like after school programs and community centers. Circuit boards provide a great introduction to electricity by giving learners a chance to experience the phenomenon through direct experimentation with familiar materials. Batteries, bulbs, and switches can be used as tools to explore different ways of building circuits. In this activity, each component is mounted on a block of wood and most are connected to two nails which serve as easy leads to connect alligator clip wires. Participants follow their own path in connecting the wires from the batteries to the other components and spend as much time as they want working out an understanding of how electricity works. Both the emphasis on approachable materials and the straightforward presentation of the parts lowers the barriers to trying things out and increases the number of surprising moments of insight.

Getting Started

First you need to collect 2×4 pieces of pine, nails, battery packs, light bulbs, buzzers and an assortment of interesting store bought and collected outputs and switches. Some that we have found particularly interesting include the plastic innards from animated stuffed animal toys, real light switches, and old-school doorbells with chimes. These components, mounted on the wood, provide the basic elements needed to create simple and complex electrical circuits. You’ll need to have plenty of all the various components and as well as enough wires with alligator clip leads available for the participants to feel comfortable testing out lots of different hypotheses.

When thinking about the environment of circuit boards, we like to try and create a communal space with many people working around one large round or curved table. This highlights the social aspects of learning and it’s not uncommon to see ideas spread around the table, people complete half-finished circuits, and participants move fluidly between roles of learner and facilitator. Part of creating a comfortable and inviting space is finding a way to make the materials accessible for all participants, giving them the choice about which components to use.

Assumptions about Electricity

Electricity is a complex and confusing subject which can lead to people developing all sorts of misunderstandings about the way that electricity works. Most of the time in formal and informal education settings, these concepts are abstracted through vocabulary lists and complicated diagrams. While people might know terms like parallel circuit, series circuits, amps, volts, and current, they may not have any hands-on experience testing out their assumptions with parts that are easy to understand. One of the joys of circuit boards is that it allows for both “experts” and “beginners” the space to make surprising and testable discoveries about how electricity really works.

Facilitation Strategies

When helping to get people started working with circuit boards it helps to begin with a non-threatening and open ended question. Some examples from our explainer facilitators include: “can you make this work?”, “want to try to turn some of these things on?” or “would you like to play with circuits?” Starting off with questions like these, as well as pointing out the difference between power supplies (battery packs) and outputs (bulbs, buzzers, motors), makes it likely that people will start out with a simple circuit. One hint that we often give people who need a little help is that a circuit is like a circle and requires a complete connection.

Once participants understand the idea of connecting wires from battery packs to lightbulbs and other components, the main role of the facilitator is to suggest ways to complexify the experience and follow the direction of the learner as they decide how to add parts to their system. Often, the first step in this process is adding a switch to the circuit. From there, facilitators might suggest turning out multiple elements with one battery, introduce more complex switches like ‘double throw double pole’ or potentiometers, or suggest ways to make the motor spin in different directions. We also provide hand crank generators for people to experience their own motion transferring to electricity to power components.

Batteries may run out of juice, bulbs can burn out and wires sometimes break, so part of the challenge of facilitation is understanding when pieces have broken and showing learners how to systematically test their components. By going through the checklist process of testing each elements, facilitators model a real method for troubleshooting electrical parts.

Taking the Experience Further

There are many ways that the experience of electricity boards can be expanded to further explore different ideas about electricity.

One way to go deeper into circuits is by making homemade switches with aluminum foil, foamies, clothespins, popsicle sticks and other craft supplies. Two pieces of aluminum foil (or other metal) will conduct electricity when they come into contact with each other and can then be connected to the battery packs and bulbs or buzzers from the circuit board set. Some interesting switches that we’ve designed include a push button made with yogurt containers, a tilt switch the uses a ball bearing, and a motion detector with a spring. A design challenge can be focused by creating a prompt that the whole group might respond to in unique ways like, “figure out how to make a switch that would sound an alarm if someone stole your dinner.”

Another exploration that we’ve tried is using two types of playdough: regular salty dough as a conductor and homemade sugar substituted dough as an insulator in an activity that we call squishy circuits. In this activity the sculptable dough is substituted for the wires and can be manipulated to explore interesting and surprising circuit arrangements. This exploration highlights the element of play as a valid and powerful mode of learning which can allow people who feel intimidated by concepts electricity to engage in a safe and fun environment of testing ideas, confirming assumptions, and generating a mental model of how circuits work.

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Tell us what you’ve tried! We’re constantly experimenting with these activities and want you to try new things too. Let us know the discoveries you’ve made, innovations you’ve developed, puzzles you’ve encountered, and more!

For the older group, we tried out a first attempt at life-size stop motion with a group of kids. We had four boys who worked as actors, directors of photography, prop managers, and special effects artists. They came up with a action drama horror comedy extravaganza involving a car crash, parachutes, steamrollers, and roof top skateboarders. That’s a lot of stuff to fit into a fifteen second motion picture!

Tomorrow we’ll post the world premier of The Fast and the Furious 6: Tinkering Drift (working title) and one more stop motion masterpiece as well as a time lapse of these two crazy days. It should be a fun way to end our experiments with the summer camp for this year.

This:

We suspect the speckles are salt crystals forming where the water has evaporated, but nobody is brave enough to lick it to be sure. But then, it could also be mold.

Stay tuned for the next round of workshops with the High School Explainers!

The Tinkering Studio was full of campers and creativity!

This camper made an arch with lights that met in the middle.  He later transformed this arch into a really cool spiral-shaped circuit.

Dan worked with this camper to light up the ears on her Mickey Mouse.

What I find most interesting about this activity is that every time we take out these materials to experiment, something completely new and surprising happens.  Everyone approaches them with a unique viewpoint and puts a personal spin on how these circuits take shape.  This week alone we’ve seen: Dr. Frankenstein and his creation, light up snowmen,  a motorized play doh hair cutter, a mood light in a play doh can, and more!  The possibilities are endless and continually inspiring.

Last week, I had the chance to shoot some informal video that I think conveys the idea of what it was like to play around with squishy circuits, what the mood was, and general energy level.

As Ryan mentioned before, I found that the range of exploration available with squishy circuits is not greater than with Circuit Boards, but the whole approach to the activity changes radically.

Specifically, what it affects most directly is the kids’ “dwell time”.

Electrical circuits can definitely be intimidating, and oftentimes an initial failure can be highly discouraging, especially for kids who are already identifying themselves as not being very “science-minded”. But everyone knows how to mess about with play-doh, and so instead of turning away, even if that light bulb does not light up at first, kids stay longer, because play-doh is inherently fun. And that increase the chances that they will make a connection, both literally and figuratively.

I also liked how Lianna facilitated the kids at the beginning of the video: keep in mind that this was our very first time trying this out on the floor, and so we really had no idea how to introduce the materials and the goals. By giving the kids something very familiar and fun to do (“make a ball with the dough”) she simultaneously got them started constructing right away, and setting up a conceptual milestone: that you close a circuit by bridging a gap in the flow of electricity.

The creative range of contraptions made and attempted was also much greater, and certainly, from my perspective, much more intertwined with aesthetic choices: circuits became airplanes, cyclops, robots, etc. Also, whether the conductive material was pink or green mattered, and so each choice was more carefully considered, and perhaps the exploration a little bit deeper than it would otherwise.

This week we’ll be doing a series of trainings with Squishy Circuits for the High School Explainers crew, and hopefully sometime in the near future we’ll be trying this out again for the public. Stay tuned on our home page, we’ll announce it there.

Visitors, explainers, and our group made all kinds of sculptures including reindeer, dolphins, glowing mushrooms, airplanes with spinning propellers, and cyclopes. Everyone seemed to be able to jump right in with the play-doh and even very young children had fun just building while others started small and then worked toward a pretty sophisticated understanding of electricity. I was impressed by a couple of kids who figured out how to turn the hobby motor into a generator and spent some time working out the terminals of a tri-colored LED.

While I’m not sure if using doughy circuits inherently builds any deeper understanding or tinkering skills than our electricity board activity, there are a couple reasons why this idea intrigues me. I like how the approachability of the material allows novices to start from equal footing and just have fun playing around as they develop their understanding. The whimsical quality of building with play-doh also stops most people from dwelling on what they “should know” about electricity and gives them a tangible substance to test out their ideas. As well, I think the creativity that you can work towards elevates the experience to that sweet spot between science and art. There was a nice moment where one kid made a crazy LED porcupine/urchin that looked great out on the table, but turned into a beautiful and mysterious piece of art when put in a dark space under a wooden box and viewed through a tiny peephole.