Light Up Collaborations - WICO Summer 1.3

On the third day of our summer program we focused on explorations of electronic elements like LEDs, breadboards, batteries, switches and sensors. Although these materials can sometimes seem more technical, we were interested in drawing out the playful and artistic possibilities inherent in the designs.

In the morning we started playing with breadboards, LEDs resistors and other electronics components. We felt it was important to give campers the chance to burn out LEDs, get frustrated with the small materials and make mistakes connecting the parts together.

We also wanted to see if we could make the process more collaborative so we created a installation called “breadboard city” where campers added their finished breadboard projects to sculpture. In the process we added on elements that changed the scale of the explorations like cupcake paper to diffuse the colors and aluminum foil switches to activate the projects.

in the afternoon we set up the room for light play which became a larger, brighter but related exploration of LEDs, circuits, shadow, reflection, refraction and aesthetics.

Each team created one kinetic sculpture to add to a larger installation which is a rhythm that we’re hoping to get into over the course of the camp to build social scaffolding to the activities.

As always the final results of the light play installation were incredibly beautiful and inspiring. We reflected about the designs and one of the campers even shared poems that she wrote about several of the elements.

It was a lot of fun to prototype these activities as a way to promote tinkering as a way of learning about content, connecting to the process of art, science and engineering and developing mindsets like iteration and collaboration.