Thinking about Tinkering Materials

In a recent Tinkering Studio blog post, Ryoko Matsumoto brilliantly described the process of “jumps” that happen when an idea for using a familiar material in a new way occurs during the prototyping process. She writes, “Tinkering R&D gives us opportunities to constantly revisit everyday materials around us with a fresh perspective and ask ourselves, ‘Oh, can this (X) be used for that (Y)?’”.

I think it’s really important that educators and designers describe the meta process behind activity development so that others can create new projects and prompts for learners. Ryoko inspired me to describe what might come next after the “jumps” as we go through the process of selecting between multiple possible materials sets.

I want to focus on the R&D process for a rollers exploration that we have been working on for the past year or so. This project originally started with the goal of creating an unfacilitated tinkering experience but is now moving in the direction of an “open kit” which could exist on the floor of the museum with variable levels of staff support. The idea of rollers explorations is that learners make physical prototypes that go down an inclined ramp (or more recently a treadmill belt surface) in an interesting way.

One thing that I want to make clear is that we think that putting every possible materials out on the floor can be counter productive in a tinkering context. We’ve seen creativity flourish when there are constraints to the kit of parts. Having too many materials can be overwhelming and often leads to learners just trying individual elements instead of making changes and modifications to iterate on their own ideas.

For tinkering activities we often try to have a set of core parts, some fun/decorative elements and things to cut shapes or attach parts together if necessary, but just enough so that people need to bring their own ideas to the fore. Part of our process is figuring out which specific tools and materials are the best fit in each of these broad categories.

There are a few other general considerations that we have for the materials sets that we use on the museum floor. We love familiar elements that people recognize from their daily life so that they feel comfortable getting started exploring. If possible we would like the the materials to be sturdy enough to be reusable by multiple participants over time in the Tinkering Studio. They should be easily manipulable with common tools like scissors and masking tape. There should be many ways to use each of the elements depending on the learners’ own ideas. It’s better if there’s not a single or ‘obvious’ use for each part and that as a whole set they encourage participants to widen their ideas instead of narrowing to one answer or solution to the problem space.

And finally there are intangible qualities for the materials we select. Do they have a playful spirit? Do they looks beautiful or interesting on their own and in the creations that learners make? Does it feel good to change and adjust the parts? The answers to these questions aren’t easy to evaluate but they have a role in the prototyping process as well.

Here are four possible materials combinations for ramps and rollers and some of the reasons that we might choose one over another to test with workshop participants.

Toilet Paper Tubes + Plastic Spools + Washers + Masking Tape + Scissors

This set is inspired by the parts that we use for the classic tinkering projects wind tubes and wind table. Our team has noticed the similarities between rolling and wind experiments as they both bring a familiar phenomenon into a different context and encourage lots of iteration on designs.

This collection of elements encourages lots of different possible designs. We might describe this as having “wide walls” meaning that there are a large variety of solutions that can be developed by learners. Some of them will be new to us!

It was fun to see how some creations (like a single derder with circular open flaps on each side) work both in the wind tube and on the treadmill. It’s also nice that even very small changes, like cutting through the tube lengthwise can make a big difference in the behavior of the roller.

Even though the plastic spools and the derders are both cylindrical shapes, the fact that they have different weights and densities encourage learners to explore offset weight and asymmetry which are two interesting factors in rolling. The derders can’t be reused too many times but they are a commonly available material that’s easy to collect lots of for tinkering. I feel that this set has a lot of potential and would be interesting to test with visitors to the museum.

Thin Cardboard Boxes + Cardboard + Scissors + Hot Glue

This materials set came out of a discussion that we had in our prototyping meetings about how getting things to roll was basically messing about in the space between cubes and spheres. So for a more challenged based materials set I tried out small tea and gum boxes and sheets of cardboard. I thought that these would be interesting because unlike the derders and spools neither rolls on their own. They need the participants to shape and change them to make them work.

I came up with a few designs but mostly they were variations of the idea of adding circles or discs to the sides of the box. Other possibilities were wrapping long strips around box but the results were actually pretty similar. Although there is some potential for this set (maybe with things like brass fasteners that allow for more movement), I don’t think that there’s enough possibilities for diverse ideas and strategies. The challenge element of getting a box to roll could help some people get started but in the end I think it limits the possibilities too much.

Thick Aluminum Wire + Yarn + Masking Tape

This materials set gets its inspiration from real world rolling toys called Galimotos that are made by children in Malawi and other countries in Southern Africa.

Galimotos are built with wire and rubber or string for decoration. I collected a roll of 14 gauge aluminum wire and some t-shirt yarn for these experiments.

There are some nice things about working with the bendable wire as it's easy to make small changes that affect the way the creations roll. Changing the angle, shape and thickness of the wire elements has a big effect on the movement and it’s easy to bend and rebend to go back and forth between the designs.

One potential downside to this materials set are that I'm not sure if there are too many really different designs that can be made out of the wire. I’d like to do more experimenting but it seems like the initial ideas are slight variations on only a couple of designs. Part of the challenge is not having some thing with dimensionality like cardboard.

At this point with the string I'm not sure how to best incorporate in into the models. I see in photos of actual galimoto examples that the string adds friction and a colorful design pattern. But for these experiments the somewhat tedious task of wrapping the wire can take away from the prototyping spirit. I want to explore evident ways of using the yarn that are beautiful and functional but at this point I’m not sure what to try next.

Plastic Bottle Rings + Cardboard + Ball Bearings? + Scissors + Masking Tape

The last set was inspired by Ryoko’s original post about the roly-poly rollers made with rings cut from plastic bottles. These materials are based on the designs that the team made as examples with laser cut plywood and big marbles. This shows a fourth way to come up with a materials set by adapting a more fixed demonstration tool or physics toy into something that learners can change and adjust.

These parts can be used in many different ways which promotes agency in the learners as they can discover new uses and techniques. The cardboard can be on the inside of the tube to change it’s shape (as in the roly polys) or it can be on the outside. Small pieces of cardboard can create ‘speed bumps’ or flaps on the surface of the plastic bottle.

I think that this set needs a weight and I would be interested to try out the large ball bearings that the team used for the instructables. This is a bit of a risky idea for tinkering on the museum floor as the balls could get lost or used in possibly dangerous ways (like all being launched off the treadmill at the same time). These eventualities should not automatically stop us from trying this out and we don’t want to design tinkering experiences with fear on the forefront of our minds. However, having a material that poses these sorts of challenges means that we need to weigh the risks and probably observe more carefully for a longer period of time before having these materials out on the museum floor.

More Ideas, Combinations and Possibilties

So with this in mind, I would recommend starting with either the derders/spools/washers set or the cardboard/plastic bottle rings for testing with visitors to the museum floor. The wire gives interesting possibilities so I might try introducing that to each of the sets after trying out with learners. Another possibility is changing out the washers for ball bearings or other heavy parts.

When we bring activities out to the museum floor the first time we make close observations to see if participants are making different types of creations, if the materials allow them to explore the problem space, if they are about to be easily manipulated so that the frustration and challenge comes from making ideas work, and if all of the parts are being used in the tinkering process. Then we reflect and talk with each other to decide if we want to add or take away parts of the materials set.

These kits are all just starting points and there can be many other possible materials sets for the activity if we want to push in a certain direction. We’ve tried cardboard tubes and percussion instruments to make sound rollers, tinker toy parts for fully reusable making and parts like googly eyes and feathers to create characters.

Every time that we introduce these new elements we think about some of the same pedagogical values to see how the materials affect the playfulness, agency and engagement of the tinkering experience. We’ll continue sharing more ideas about this project as well as meta ideas about the prototyping process here and on the Tinkering Studio blog.

The LEGO Playful Learning Museum Network initiative is made possible through generous support from the LEGO Group.