Maker Faire Heilbronn "Remix your Toys"
Recently I had the chance to set up a workshop activity at Maker Faire Heilbronn hosted by Der Makerspace at Experimenta, the largest science center in Germany.
Der Makerspace is a inspiring model of a creative environment for materials, tools and projects connected to a science center and Maker Faire was a great chance to see it fully animated. Over the years, Maker Faire has always presented me a fun opportunity to try new things and get connected to the local community and I felt excited to join in one of the closest Maker Faire events to my home in Freiburg.
For the workshop I got inspired by the prototypes from local educator Martin Schwab who I have been connecting with during my time in Freiburg. Martin specializes in designing wonderful workshops and projects that involve using LEGO parts in new and creative ways. After chatting about together about the theme, we decided on sharing two different activities that combine everyday materials with LEGO pieces as examples of ways that tinkerers can “remix their toys”.
The first half of the day was an experiment with LEGO art machines made from the base of an experimental pull-string motors* that I have from a previous collaborations with LEGO Foundation and LEGO Idea Studio, clothespins, markers and a small subset of LEGO technic bricks. I was inspired by our previous work with LEGO drawing machines from my time at the Exploratorium.
I arrived about a half hour early to the event and started setting up by covering the tables in white paper, unpacking the materials into little currywurst containers scattered around the table and making a couple low-threshold examples. Pretty soon the space was full of children and adults building and playing.
As usual, I was amazed by the variety of designs that people worked on. Whether the participants had tons of experience working with LEGO construction or were newbies to the LEGO technic parts they could quickly iterate and try out new things.
Some of the most interesting designs included one with spinning markers that painted on a makeshift vertical sheet of paper, a strandbeest-like walker with intricate linkages and a roller that traced straight lines on the table.
At about the half-way point in the day we cleared off the art machines materials, hung up our colorful art masterpieces and switched to rubber band, LEGO pegboard marble machines. Martin has been developing this version of the activity with his students based on the backboard that we created on the laser cutter in the Tinkering Studio during a previous project. He’s been refining the materials set and prompts for the marble run project and it was really nice to see how fast kids could start tinkering with just the smallest introduction to the table.
But even with this low threshold starting point, some of the participants went really deep into their explorations. One group connected three pegboards together and made an absolutely massive bouncing, winding marble path. Some of the kids who came to the table started out by testing this machines with a handful of marbles. I think it’s a really wonderful thing when participants can become the experts in the activity and introduce others to the high ceiling possibilities.
One addition to the materials set that we tried were little cow bells which provided one more possible direction for learners. There were many potential goals like the slowest marble, longest track, most risky path, making flippers and adding the idea of sound elements was one more possible motivation for builders.
At Maker Faire, I think it’s really important to have opportunities to deeply engage with materials, tinker without step-by-step instructions and spark organic conversations while working with our hands. These ‘hack your toys’ activities provided a great opportunity for these types of engagement. Looking forward to the next Maker Faire in Germany and also the next chance to collaborate with Der Makerspace at Experimenta. Thanks to Martin Schwab for co-faciliating the workshop and sharing your prototypes as well.
*sadly these motors are not widely available and as far as I know, there’s no plans to produce them for the general public, but a similar activity could be tried with LEGO wind-up motors or regular battery powered LEGO technic motors