WICO@Home Workshops with Friends

Over the past few months, we’ve been experimenting with several ways of engaging with making and tinkering activities. I’ve been collaborating with the Tinkering School to create online camps that blend physical and digital tinkering for learners working from home. As well I’ve had a couple small chances to share projects from my “at home” tinkering spaces.

I wanted to share a few of the video workshops/conversations that I’ve been part of over the past few months in the hopes that they can inspire continued tinkering projects.

I joined some of the Maker Faire alumni to lead a maker camp session on building “junk automata” or moving kinetic sculptures out of scrap materials found around the house.

Continuing with the automata theme, I joined an inspiring teachers, Mr Reynolds, to discuss the tips and tricks of building cranky contraptions as well as some ideas for tinkering at home.

Later on in the summer I joined Paul Stolt from the Amazeum in Bentonville Arkansas to talk about virtual tinkering, experiments with kaleidoscopes and physical/digital prototypes.

And finally I joined my colleagues from the ECSITE makerspace to bring the tinkering spirit to this year’s virtual conference with some experiments with light, shadow and everyday materials. Although we missed meeting in person, it was really fun to see all of the different ways people have been tinkering at home.

Over the next several months there will be more chances to share professional development workshops, weekend family classes and conference presentations about making and tinkering. Of course we can’t wait until we can all tinker together in-person but for now we can enjoy chances to share ideas and be inspired at a distance.