Chain Reaction Share-Out and Set-Off - WICO Summer 4.1

Each week at the Wonderful Idea Co summer camp, the group builds a collaborative chain reaction made up of complex circuits, engineered mechanisms, funny stories and lots of masking tape! This is one of our favorite tinkering activities and each week we see new ideas and experiments around the room!

Today was the fourth week of constructing a collaborative chain reaction and once again participants worked hard to construct unique and imaginative elements.

Before setting off the reaction, we went through and talked through each one of the chain reaction tables sharing about how they imagine their elements to work. This is one of the most important parts of the activity (and also sometimes a overlooked aspect) where groups can learn from other’s ideas and get to reinforce their own meta learning by articulating the plans.

As always it was a really exciting set off! The chain reaction worked smoothly with just a couple “magic” fingers helping the golf balls and dominoes move along. I loved seeing the faces and voices of the campers showing excitement throughout the entire experience. Its important to have fun while tinkering and it’s hard to not enjoy yourself when making whimsical contraptions like this machine.