2024 Year in Review

This year has been so full of amazing connections and long-term projects coming to fruition. I’m excited to share some of the highlights of 2024 from Wonderful Idea Co. and preview a few of the things that I’m excited about for 2025. 

Over the past four years I’ve been making connections with local people working in STEAM education here in my adopted home in Freiburg, Germany. This year was a big jump forward in that process which was kick-started by a collaborative workshop with Kenn Munk from A Secret Club in Aarhus, Denmark. We used this artist-in-residency period to plan a tinkering jam meet for educators, artists and researchers in the area and had a really fun time playing with the idea of time and clocks. That meeting has led to more workshops and connections with the Pädagogische Hochschule, NEXUS Experiments at Freiburg University and Experinauten here in Freiburg as well as TinkerTank and Raumschiff in the surrounding area. It’s also really cool that this initial meet-up sparked collaborations between partners that I wasn’t directly involved with, strengthening the making/tinkering/STEAM ecosystem in the region. 

Going a little further afield from my home base here in Baden-Wurttemburg, I also got the chance to work with educators at two of the biggest science museums in Germany. I led a professional development workshop with educators at Deutsches Museum in Munich which included some experimental kaleidoscope elements. And I contributed to a massive renovation project at the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg by prototyping several light and optics exhibit prototypes. 

I’m always really interested in seeing what kinds of new technologies can be used for hands-on creative and playful projects. In the past year I’ve had the chance to do some small first steps into cutting edge areas that hopefully will inspire more experimentation. As part of the LEGO playful museum learning network, I shared ideas around digital kaleidoscopes using Octostudio, a new block based coding platform developed by the lifelong kindergarten crew at the MIT Media Lab. Recently I tried out experiments with AI for the first time, facilitating a pilot workshop alongside colleagues at NEXUS lab where local educators tried making interactive digital graphic novels using ChatGPT, Dall-E and Scratch Labs face sensing blocks. And in partnership with the Clean Conferencing Institute, I worked on creating workshops in SpatialChat, a new platform for online tinkering where participants are able to move around a flexible digital environment. 

Another highlight for me this year was contributing to the Create Your World exhibition at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. I’ve wanted to attend this gathering for many years and it was perfect to be able to not only check out the scene but all add to it with a giant project. Along with my friends at TinkerTank, we set up a huge makerspace workshop and spent five days working with the public to construct a giant collaborative chain reaction machine. The process was amazing and I learned so much from how we exploded the constraints of tables and dominoes to incorporate wooden ramps, skateboards, auto tires, zip lines and even the architectural package chutes that are part of the Post City environment. 

And of course the biggest project that I launched this year was my book, The Tinkering Workshop, which is a collection of everyday materials, open-ended prompts and amazing artists to inspire kids, families and educators to tinker with art, science and technology. I’ve been blown away so far seeing the responses to the release and especially have enjoyed seeing all the videos and photos of people making some of the projects featured in the pages. 

For the launch of the book I traveled back to California with my family for a whirlwind two week tinkering tour. There were amazing stops at the Live Oak School in San Francisco, Redwood City Public Library and the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium. The first weekend after the release happened to coincide with Bay Area Maker Faire and I was so happy to be back among that community sharing projects from the book in hands-on workshops. Then we headed down to Southern California for events at MOXI Wolff Museum of Science and Innovation in Santa Barbara, Timbre Bookstore in Ventura and ReDiscover Center in LA. I had so much fun sharing the book, the activities and the ideas behind them at each one of these events. 

I want to give a big shout-out and thanks to the making and tinkering community who has supported this project in so many incredible ways before, during and after the launch. Some of the amazing reviews and features include Rachelle from Tinkerlab sharing her excitement of the book, Pam from the Library Makers group helping to organize an online bookclub, Jen from Tested featuring it on the 2024 “favorite things video” and Aaron Kramer and Amisha Gadani joining a tour event as featured artists.

To everyone who left a review, shared the book with a friend, helped facilitate or organize one of the events, participated in an online meet-up or just passed along a note or word of encouragement, your support was so valuable and appreciated. I’m really looking forward to continuing the momentum for these projects in 2025 (like an EU book tour and more AI experiments with local youth centers in Freiburg). Thanks so much for being part of the Wonderful Idea Co. community and happy holidays.