Moving Toys with TP Tubes

Last week we tried a new experimental workshop focused on how to get started tinkering with an everyday and how a guest artist could help us explore more complex and open ended projects. The first iteration of the “Tinkerable Things” workshop focused on the Toilet Paper Tube and Noga Elhassid of Moving Toys Workshop joined to facilitate a brand new project.

We had about a dozen participants joining us on a Saturday morning. The workshop started with a prompt borrowed from our friends at Artencurs to look closely at the toilet paper tube (as if it was the first time you ever saw) and write down all of your observations. Then we spent about five minutes “transforming” the tube into something new.

There were so many interesting ideas from making a mask, to cutting out differently shaped confetti pieces to constructing a light/shadow sculpture. I love how this seemingly simple prompt can result in so many different creations.

Then Noga introduced the idea of using a paper tube as a platform to turn 2D linkages into 3D kinetic scuptures. She gave a great introduction to the process of experimenting with mechanisms and started us on the path to building characters with moving mouths that could talk, sing or bite!

These projects can be complexified and Noga made some YouTube videos that show some of the steps of making the designs and taking them a couple steps further to make more complex linkages and even a rolling creature.

Even with the short amount of time to work on the projects, the participants in the workshop built some really whimsical and personal creations and posted them on the padlet. We had a crocodile, a fox, imaginary characters and even a realistic Roseate Spoonbill Crane.

This workshop really inspired me to continue thinking about construction with toilet paper tubes and the format got me thinking about other materials that we can focus on for future “Tinkerable Things” workshops. Check out our events page for the latest schedule of online and in-person workshops.