We’re wrapping up an eventful second year of tinkering in the pandemic period. Even in challenging circumstances we are so thankful to have an amazing group of collaborators and the ability to continue developing new and innovative projects. Here are a few highlights from the last 12 months.

We led four workshops with our collaborators at Cabaret Mechanical Theatre with 52 participants from 12 countries. We prototyped two versions of the workshop, one focusing on the process of building automata with everyday materials and the other with integrating computation and micro:bit into the construction process. In each workshop we worked with artists both from cabaret family and the larger tinkering universe and we had 12 guests share ideas and inspirations including Tim Hunkin, Walter Kitundu, Lisa Slater, Becca Rose and many more.

I gave virtual keynote speeches in Turkey, Australia, St. Louis, Denmark and Brazil and led activities with participants, giving them the chance to have hands-on experience with the tinkering process. These presentations reached approximately750 people.

One thing that’s becoming a bigger and bigger priority for my work is how to integrate the tinkering process to the challenges of climate change. One nice collaboration that I had in this direction was creating new activities that allow people to experiment with solar power with ETH. I informally partnered with Amos Blanton and other tinkererers to develop some new ideas like a solar light dissection and a do-nothing machine.

Over the past year, little online workshops with Music Makers, Ecsite and Make Campus gave me the chance to prototype some new ideas. I was excited to partner with Jorvon Moss, Jasmine Florentine and Noga Elhassid for these experiments.

Although I was mostly working out of a suitcase, without a shop for the year, There was still the chance to develop some new starting points for activities. I shared ideas around a low stakes automata exploration, micro:bit characters, sound automata, cardboard kaleidoscopes and kinetic collages using computation.

We launched a world tour workshop to virtually travel the world and learn from artists, educators and makers. We had ten sessions and visited makerspaces and museums in Berlin, Nairobi, Kathmandu, Sao Paulo and even on Mars (simulated in San Francisco). We had 150 participants from countries all around the world. We hope to launch a third season next year.

At the end of the year I began a new project with my former colleagues at the Exploratorium Tinkering Studio. We’re developing new tinkerable experiences that can be unfacilitated (uftes) and we’ve started with balance. Over the next several months we’ll continue prototyping activities with the themes of light/shadow, kaleidoscopes, ramps/rollers and automata.

Although we were mostly working behind a zoom screen this year, through our website and social media accounts, we continued to build a tinkering community. We had 9,500 hits on our website from 103 countries.

And for me personally, this was the year that Erica and I settled more in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany after I’ve spent the last fifteen years in the Bay Area. I’m convinced that all over the world there are tinkerers and constructionist educators that are working on similar projects. This year I felt really thankful to connect with Claus Schneidereit, a kinetic artist with an amazing workshop. I’ve been spending time there prototyping the balancing explorations and I’m looking forward to more collaborations in 2022. As well I discovered the Speilmobil, a traveling workshop with some large scale tinkerable experiences, in parks and public spaces here. I’m hoping to connect with them and partner on activities.

I’m sure next year will be another challenge as individually and collectively we adjust to unexpected circumstances and be flexible in the face of new developments. I hope to continue to develop an iterative approach to unforeseen challenges and a collaborative attitude with a world-wide network of tinkerers. Happy New Year and hope for more tinkering in 2022.

2021 Year in Review