Sharing Final Prototypes - Computational Creatures 1.5

On the final day of the first week of our computational creatures summer camp, small groups finished up the art and technology experiments that they had been exploring over the week. 

It was really cool to see how even before the camp day officially started, all of the kids were engaged and working on their projects. It felt important that each of the campers were able to pick their own topics for projects and decide on their own definition of success. 

In the morning session, tinkerers did whatever nessecary to make last minute adjustments to their projects including learning how to solder, debugging the micro:bit code, adding decorations and iterating on the designs. 

After lunch, each group spent time working on setting up an area of the room to display their projects. There was a lot of great collaboration as campers practiced sharing tasks, communicating ideas and helping each other troubleshoot problems. 

Before opening the doors for our gallery walk, we went around as a group and talked about each project. Campers shared what frustrations they had, the tools that they used, the ideas that they didn't get to and the things that they were most proud of about their creations. 

At the end of the day we created a open house setting for campers to show off projects to family, friends and siblings. It was so cool to see everyone showing off their projects, explaining the programming behind their work and sharing their excitement about their work. 

The week was a great chance to experiment with ideas around computational tinkering, art, science and engineering. We were really impressed with the variety of ideas, ability to work through frustration and sense of fun that the campers demonstrated over the course of the week. It was a great way to start the summer of tinkering experiments!