Lights and Shadow Storytelling - WICO Summer 2019 4.2

At the third day of WICO camp we started messing around with LED lights and shadows to make projects that express scientific, computational and story ideas.

We started the morning with an exploration of using Micro:bit to power and program LEDs. This has become a really important part of the progression of camp as we slowly move from programming only on the screen to integrating electronic components in the real world.

In addition it’s a great chance for campers to collaborate with each other as they engage in pair programming. We often see people sharing past knowledge, brainstorming possible solutions and excitedly imagine next steps.

In the afternoon we continued exploring expressive light and shadows with our Light Play activity. To get started for the experience we went around the room in small groups and explored curated sets of lights and materials.

Campers worked in pairs to create their own light and shadow sculptures that expressed a story, a emotion or a discovery about the light and shadow.

There were lots of great engineering solutions and innovations. I especially appreciated this group that worked extremely hard on creating a system to turn a cup using two motors, stands and a couple of limiters.

As always, the final light play wall was spectacular and expressed so many individual and group ideas about science art and technology. It’s a great celebration of the midpoint of our summer camp week.