Science for Monks and Nuns Chain Reaction

Over the past few days I had the amazing opportunity to lead a tinkering workshop with a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in Dharamshala, India. This program was organized by Science for Monks and Nuns, a non-profit organization committed to fulfill the vision of the Dalai Lama “to nurture leaders who are establishing the indigenous capacity of the Tibetan monastic community to engage in new science learning and dialogue.”

For this workshop, centered around the idea of building a collaborative Rube Goldberg style chain reaction machine, I partnered with Shivani Singhal from Dharohar in Udaipur India. She helped by gathering many of the tinkering materials that we prepared together for her science center in January. We arrived at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives on Tuesday and began organizing the materials and preparing for the activities.

We worked with the 3rd leadership cohort of twenty four monks and nuns who had already spent time over the past three years engaging with teachers, trying out DIY science experiments and even designing their own exhibit about the difference between western and Buddhist conception of particles.

We conceptualized this tinkering experience as a tongue-in-cheek final exam, asking them to work as a team and apply scientific, artistic and engineering concepts towards a common goal.

On Wednesday we started the tinkering workshop by building art machines, which we planned as an introductory activity to allow the group to get comfortable with thinking with their hands and start thinking about the learning outcomes of tinkering experiences.

It was so fun to see the energy and excitement that the group brought to the activity. At first it seemed like they wanted to understand the concepts before getting their hands on the materials, but after a little bit of playing they really started experimenting with the drawing robots.

There were some really cool ideas that included creating characters, investigating double motors and testing our different ways of attaching the markers.

After an hour, all the tables (and even parts of the floor) were covered with interesting patterns and there were a wide variety of different machines dancing and jittering around the space. We had a session to reflect about the experience and many of them shared how although they initially felt that the prompt/task would be simple, as they began working they discovered how complicated it can be to bring theoretical ideas about how things should work into reality.

At the end of the first day we had a discussion about the idea of constructionism and constructivism and it was really interesting to see how deep they went with their questions after this first experience. We considered “what do we think when we are making something?”, “what’s the value of constructing things in a culture that’s used to dialog and listening to teachers?” and “is there an age or expertise level that’s best for these tinkering experiences?”.

The next day we started on the collaborative chain reaction machine. We set up twelve tables with domino input/output blocks and asked the group to work in pairs to create a section of the chain reaction that showed their journey as a science learner.

As usual most of the groups started by grabbing a lot of materials and placing them on the tables. Many of them were excited about the slow moving motors, salvaged toy parts and aluminum foil switches as starting points to their machines.

We had a mini wood shop available so many of the tables also started constructing elements that raised up the elements of their machines, secured their motors to the tables and created strong bases for pulley systems.

At the end of the first day we went around the room and each of the group shared one element they were proud of and one thing that they wanted to work on in the coming sessions. It was really nice to get a more extended time to think about the chain reaction and create deliberate opportunities for the group to share and borrow ideas from each other.

It was so cool to see how much progress they made after a couple sessions on Thursday and think about how their ideas would evolve and change.

As we started working on the machines on the last day of the workshop there were a lot of iterations and complications on their ideas. Some of the groups removed whole parts of their machines that they deemed to simple or not reliable.

Others really focused on the aesthetic elements of the machines, adding tibetan prayer flags, intricately designed elements and colorful characters.

Before the last session we had a “practice run” of the machine, giving the groups the chance to observe the reaction and notice the places where their elements didn’t work exactly according to plan. They then had about another hour to work on those trouble spots or add things like exploding confetti balloons and light up temples.

The group responsible for the last table was interested in a very special finale of mentos dropping in a bottle of coke. With permission from Bryce, they rigged up a system with a string holding the mentos inside the bottle and a little Thor action figure with an exacto blade that would spin around and cut the thread, creating an dramatic (and messy) end to the reaction!

For the final session we went around the room and asked each group to explain the path of their machine as well as the story behind it. There were lots of laughs and appreciations in this description of the machine.

And the final set off of the machine was absolutely wonderful! There were so many cool little engineered detailed, personally meaningful parts and innovative ideas expressed in the contraption. There was so much excitement and cheering for each of the elements and you could tell how much pride the cohort had in their own parts of the machine and the collective achievement of the group!

It was such a memorable and powerful experience to share some of our favorite tinkering activities with this thoughtful and playful group with a unique perspective. They brought a lot of energy to the hands-on workshops and also to the discussions about learning through making, the combination of art, science and engineering and the power of following learners own ideas.