This weekend I set up a tinkering activity at Maker Faire Heilbronn in Der Makerspace at Experimenta science center. It was my third time participating at this wonderful community based celebration of making and tinkering. To set up the theme for this year’s projects I drew on two prototypes that I’ve been working on with OliOli children’s museum in Dubai over the last months, cars & ramps and musical bench.

For the large building space I set up a cars and ramps workshop area that built on the experiments at the museum but which offered a bit more open-ended building in a facilitated environment.

The parts that participants had to work with included wooden bases with a LEGO plate on one side and a row of magnets on the other. They could attach various wheels to the LEGO side with pins and connectors and connect various decorations and weights to the magnetic side. Additionally for this workshop environment I added magnetic tape, small ceramic magnets, cardboard and hot glue for further customization options.

As people came to the station I offered the theme of building a car that is schnell (fast), schleich (slow or creeping) or seltsam (strange). Many playful designs resulted from this provocation and learners got inspired by one or more of these goals.

My biggest challenge was to build or transport a ramp. Since I planned to travel by train I couldn’t bring parts for a large-scale test area. I asked the makerspace to use a piece of wood and I added angled edges. Although it was too short, this slow moving track did encourage close observation of the machines and the potential crash at the end gave chances for collaboration with people catching each other’s vehicles.

Around the workshop there was lots of iterating on ideas and some really interesting experiments with multiple wheels, tying cars together and playing with weight. I was surprised by a car that worked in one direction and turned off the track when facing the opposite way. As well some of the linked cars could demonstrate the difference in speed even on the short test ramp.

I would like to better understand how to place a larger emphasis on the testing and phenomenon. I think two or more tracks together would help learners compare designs. I also want to build a simple timer system. And some of the materials like off balanced weights, sails and ways to change the wheel orientation might encourage more play with the phenomena like friction, acceleration, gravity and stability.

And just for fun, next to the building area I set up a classic Tinkering Studio exhibit called Ohm is where the art is” which first debuted at Bay Area Maker Faire in 2007(!!!). This set-up inspired the making of the musical bench exhibit and I took the opportunity to test my new electronics and code for the OliOli bench in this more portable iteration.

The interaction had two large pads (in this case heavy aluminum foil over heating insulation) that attach to either side of the Playtronica TOUCHME board. When people stand on each pad and touch hands, play footsie, give high fives, kiss or make human chains, the device produces musical notes that change based on the amount of electricity that makes it back into the system through people’s bodies.

It was really easy to troubleshoot the exhibit on the fly with the BELA platform and the code that I created with the help of AI chatbots. The interaction worked a bit differently in a new setting so I had to quickly adjust the parameters of the high and low notes.

I loved coming back to this version of the exhibit and seeing all of the playful ways that people explored the phenomenon. Although it was a bit of a high barrier to entry to remove one’s shoes and hop on the pads, the people who tried (some even put on a sock fashion show) were rewarded with a fun experience.

I had a bit of time to check out the rest of the faire (thanks to Die Experinauten for covering the workshop for a little bit) and really enjoyed seeing the wide variety of demos and workshops. Some highlights included a school that built a magnetic track, a collection of spinning tinkering prompts, recycled plastic molding from Tinkertank and lots of fun robotics demonstrations. I think the size and scale of this faire is perfect, with plenty of things to do but also a real community feel. The team at the makerspace has created such a great environment for tools and projects and works so hard to bring the maker community together for this event.

Playful Prototyping at Maker Faire Heilbronn 2026