Glow City at the Carl Schurz Haus

This past weekend I hosted my third tinkering workshop at the Carl Schurz Haus, a local institution that connects the German and American communities in Freiburg. We have been going through some of the projects in my book, The Tinkering Workshop, which is also available at their cozy english language library. This time we focused on the theme of “Glow City” a mash-up of paper circuits and cardboard construction. 

I prepared a collection of materials that included lots of different colors and sizes of LEDs, two types of conductive tape (copper and fabric) and coin-cell batteries. We set up cutting mats with utility knives, a hot glue station and a large collection of cardboard pieces. I made a couple of examples (both simple and more complex) and we got started building. 

I was really impressed by the variety of ideas and innovative designs that the group made. Our city had cars, stop lights, giant arches, discos and fast-food restaurants. The circuits all were beautiful and complex. 

It was really fun to see how lots of ideas around electricity and circuits emerged naturally over the course of the explorations. Participants figured out that they couldn’t connect the two conductive lines through experimentation, tested the limits of how many LEDs one battery can power and tried to see if they could get different colors working on the same circuit. I find this to be a much more powerful learning experience than if I would have front loaded the workshop in the beginning by talking through ideas about short circuits, parallel paths and resistance. 

At the end of the workshop we places all of the buildings together to make a blinking flashing glowing installation. It’s really nice when a tinkering workshop can bring together all of the different projects to make something larger and more beautiful. I love developing this collaborative spirit in the workshop. 

As we reflected on the designs that participants built we shared ideas about how to continue to go deeper on this theme. There are possibilities to add in special circuits, more complex LEDs and even programmable elements.

Thanks to all the participants in the workshop, it was really fun to see all of the surprising and complicated ideas. Our next activity at the CSH will be on March 7th and we’ll be playing around with motorized balancing sculptures. I’m looking forward to the next chance to connect with the local families and educators.