{Cross-posted from MakerBridge blog}

Over the past few months, we’ve been piloting Toy Takeapart at our statewide MakerFest events and Michigan Makers after-school program. It’s pretty close to a sure-fire hit.

We visit our favorite end-of-the-line thrift store outlet, where we can buy electronic toys for less than a dollar and know that if we did not buy the toy, it would be dumpster-bound within the hour. (That saves us from the guilt of thinking we have grabbed a toy that a needy child otherwise could have used.)

We avoid any toys with a screen — I’m a little anxious about what chemicals could be released if the screen was cracked.

Why toys and not appliances? Toys tend to run on 6 volts or fewer of electricity. Anything that plugs in gets 120V, and that means there can be energy stored up inside that could be unsafe for kids.

If it’s a public event, we generally set out the toys with a handful of screwdrivers, googles, pliers, and this handout. Without a doubt, when we clean up at the end of the night, the take apart table looks like a tornado has hit. Even though we tell kids and families that they can keep We scoop up anything that is left over. Anything cool and electronic gets saved for future digital jewelry-making. Anything else gets added to the junk box, where it will get a second life inspiring a new invention or creation.

This year, we are working with third graders after school, and we notice that they have new discoveries and needs different from the 4th and 5th graders we’ve worked with previously. Here is some of what they are learning (and what we are learning about them!):

1. Many third graders have never used hand tools before. They love the tiny precision screwdrivers and don’t intuitively recognize that they need to pick a right-sized screwdriver for the screw. Tinier isn’t always better — a standard No. 1 Philips screwdriver is often our go-to. (What made us realize this was that we had lost one or two of these over the summer and suddenly we were scrambling to share!)
2. They’ve never heard “lefty loosy, righty tighty.”
3. The simultaneous push-down-while-turning dual action of screwdrivers is tough for them to master, especially when they are tackling a new screw. We sometimes have to get them started for them. However, they tend to have high levels of perseverance for removing multiple screws. What facilitates this is that we try to put at least two kids on a toy at a time so they can take turns.
4. They are less interested in the science of circuitry and more in the wonder of the stuff they find inside. They reacted with enormous wonder to polyfill inside stuff animated creatures.
5. Speakers are magnetic and much more interesting to them than circuits, capacitors, or resistors.
6. Cutting wires is more awesome than discovering what components are connected by the wires.

Taking parts home is part of the fun.

I’m tickled to see how many life skills these kids are acquiring as they go on. It’s empowering to master the art of driving (or, in this case, “undriving”) screws. And fascinating to realize we’ve now been in this making and tinkering business long enough to see the different ways kids react depending on their age and experience.

Have you hosted a takepart, wreck lab, or appliance autopsy event?

Kristin

Amanda McLaren, director of the Benzonia Public Library, one of our project’s partner “deep dive” sites for ongoing engagement, and I got to record an interview today at Michigan Radio for Stateside with Cynthia Canty. It was really fun to talk about community-based making!

We’ll keep you posted when the show airs.

Remember this clip from the White House Science Faire of President Obama helping 8th grader Joey Hudy shoot off a marshmallow cannon he made with the help of the folks at Home Depot? So did reporter and author Rebecca Onion, who mused about what this revived focus in informal science work meant.

She set forth to study the informal science movement over the past 100 years in a series of vignettes collected in the newly-released volume innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Popular Science in the United States (University of North Carolina Press | Amazon | Project Muse (subscription required) | Google Books Preview ).

As shown in the the table of contents below, her research takes her on remarkable journey.

Chapter 1 takes her to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum between the World Wars, with descriptions of children (mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly male) learning classification and tree identification but ultimately leading to a group of boys running the museum’s wireless system.

Chapter 2 studies the rise of chemistry kits and the ways in which the “naughty” behaviors of those who used them (again, mostly white, middle class, and male) began to be seen not as mischievous but as scientific. Chapter 3 looks at the movement to identify and showcase scientific talent (again, with males as key figures and female budding scientists as those guided by males, dating male contestants, or visiting the Hope Diamond), with a desire to find prospective scientists who also met society’s ideals for sociability. Oh, and most of them, just to be clear, were mostly male, mostly white, and mostly middle-class. See the pattern?

Chapter 4 delves into the role of science fiction, particularly the worlds created by Robert Heinlein. (Teachers and librarians, beware: he’s got harsh words for both of these traditionally female-dominated professions, though some of his harshest words were reserved for his editor — and Newbery Honor awardee Alice Dalgleish).

Chapter 5 looks at the early years of San Francisco’s Exploratorium and wonders aloud if, just as with the male chemistry kits, the movement to learn science through exploration is more about play than about scientific acquisition. Thankfully, gender plays less of a role here, but the pedigree of the Exploratorium’s founder makes for a good jeopardy question, as it is none other than the brother of Robert Oppenheimer of the Manhattan Project.

I’ve been recommending this book to everyone I see because it raises some crucial and critical questions about the role of informal, out-of-school science in the development of the scientific workforce and in the development of science skills. Here are some of the many questions that my team and I found ourselves asking as we read:

1. For decades, there has been an intent to develop more scientists through interventions like museums, science competitions, and even science fiction. Has it worked? To what extent?
2. What is the difference between “cool” science (think of the hair-raising Van de Graff generators or the Diet Coke and Mentos explosions at a Maker Faire) and the day-to-day work of scientists? Does interest in “cool” lead to professional engagement? What is the missing piece there?
3. What pieces need to be in place in order for children to not only experience science but develop meaningful/rigorous scientific understanding?
4. Over and over again, there are events in American history that are that generation’s Sputnik. (Think, for example of President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech, in which he referred to the need for more research and development by calling it “our generation’s Sputnik moment“) Do we succeed in rising to the challenge today? Historically?
5. Today’s maker movement has been accused of catering to an audience that is primarily male, well-educated, and middle class, the same population Ms. Onion refers to repeatedly in movements of the past. How do we get past this as the primary audience, 100 years later?
6. Do we have the right players working with young people to develop scientific thinking, understanding, processing, and reasoning? How would we know that we were successful in this way?
7. One of the implicit themes of Ms. Onion’s book is that perhaps what we’ve labeled as informal or out-of-school science is actually play. Yet politicians and decision-makers are often far more committed to spending money on science/STEM/STEAM/STREAM/STREAMS/HAMSTER (!!) than on play. Should we try to change the narrative? What are the risks/benefits of doing so?

All in all, this has been one of the STEM/maker books I’ve read lately that has challenged my thinking the most. I highly recommend it. You can get started reading it below, as much of the first chapter is available via Google Books.

Anyone else read it?

Kristin

[Cross-posted at MakerBridge and Active Learning]

Last month, I wrote about some of the things we had learned traveling the state with maker professional development.

This month, I’d like to focus in on one finding in particular: the relative lack of awareness of Make magazine and the ensuing implications in rural and underserved communities.

Partway through the summer, we changed our summative activity that the end of the three-day workshop. Our colleague Amber created a blank parody cover of Make magazine called Made, and we invited participants to imagine that Made was going to create a special issue focused solely on their makerspace. They were asked to provide the cover headlines that would relate to the vision they had worked on during the workshop.

And that’s where things got interesting. Overwhelmingly, only one or two attendees had ever heard of Make magazine.

So what are the implications of this? What does making look like when the flagship publication isn’t a reference point?

Our observations are that without that supposedly canonical reference point, making in libraries and K-12 schools (our two primary audiences) tends to be:

• the STEM tinkering model of commercial kits, not raw materials put to work to create a personal vision
• more focus on soft skills
• less focus on drones and more integration of stereotypically female activities like sewing, quilting, and knitting
• more focused on low-cost activities that can scale up for groups rather than individual activities that cost $50+
• less focused on Arduino and professional-grade coding

Do you notice anything similar in your space?

Kristin

Cross-posted from the MakerBridge blog

Edit:

Frankenmuth, a place so beautiful that we were glad it rained one of the days, making us feel better about not missing out on anything. From Bronner’s to the newly opened farmer’s market, there was so much to see and do in this place. We were right in saving it for the grand finale it turned out to be.

On day one, we covered the big picture about making and wrapped the day up with wonderful Hanoch Piven style creations about makerspaces. Day two started with rain on the outside, but it was all sunny in our workshop. Taking inspiration from the cafeteria chairs( which were never meant for a day long session) we designed the chairs of our dreams. We walked through the design thinking process and created prototypes with legos. A fun activity where the creativity and resourcefulness of the participants shined through. We spent the afternoon exploring some hands on activities, tools and the STEM exploration bus from Delta College. We also had the Makerfest at the Frankenmuth Public Library that evening. Thanks to Mary, Pam and Cora(of the Library) and Cindy (who had participated in the workshop at Alpena), we had the library filled to the brim with activities and had the Delta college bus outside(which was a hit among the children). Was very exciting to see the school Lego team and their creations as well as the hack/takeapart station hosted by a member of the community.

On the third day,  we visited the classrooms of elementary school teachers Julie Leach and Tosha Miller (of the TwoSassyApples fame). It was interesting to see the amount of exposure their students were getting and the kind activities being done in the space. They were also kind enough to have a surprise giveaway for one of our participants! After that, we went to the classrooms of the High school teachers Mr. VanArsdale and Mr. Culver. They showed us some great examples of 3D modelling coupled with 3D printing to optimize the casings of the motors on their underwater ROVs. They also had made attachments for a microscope that allowed a student with disability to do her lab work independently. In Mr. VanArsdale classroom, it was reassuring to see the students’ designs and engineering drawings being given the center stage, showing us that the true strength of 3D printing or other fabrication tools lies in 3D modelling skills. A special thanks to both their students who took out the time to come show us their work and the 3D printer they had modified and built from scratch. We ended the day by sharing some strategies on assessment and revisiting the mission from day one.

Working with Pam, Cora and Mary was a truly wonderful experience, and that basement of amazing stuff(not calling it junk) keeps us awake at night with envy. The commitment towards the community you have shows us the true charm of Frankenmuth lies in its people.

Here are some resources that may be helpful:

• Day 1 Slides
• Day 2 Slides
• Day 3 Slides
• Flickr photostream (we’ll add more as we go!)
• Page with many handouts on it (ask if you don’t see what you need — we don’t have permission to post others’ copyrighted material)
• Join us Thursday night, 6-8pm, for the free Frankenmuth MakerFest!

Photo: Maker Area at Frankenmuth Wickson District Library, Aug. 2016

Edit:

The one day workshop on Making as learning at the Butman Fish Library, Saginaw was made possible by a chance that Rhonda Butler, the head of the Wicke’s Branch at Saginaw, took while applying to host it. And we are so grateful she did. This was a high energy workshop from start to finish.

We introduced the participants to some high level definitions of making. Then we turned our focus to their community and prompted them to think about the big picture; what was their vision for a makerspace and what it would look like. After that, we shared some ideas on how to assess the work being done in makerspaces without crushing any of the open endedness or the creativity. This brought us to design challenges and design thinking.

With a short introduction to the process of Design Thinking, the group jumped into the challenge with gusto. It was fascinating to see them work under such time constraints(as this was a short workshop) and come up with refined and amazing ideas. The product pitches themselves were a class apart. Hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time, the pitches left us in splits and also wishing the products existed.

We then explored some hands on activities and tools that we had brought along. We had a great conversation about the experiences of the day and how to move forward, bringing this wonderful day to an end. Keeping the best till the end, a very special thanks to the staff of Saginaw Public Libraries for being such lovely hosts and making the workshop so lively.

We are happy to be at the work home of UMSI alum Rhonda Farrell-Butler today — Butman Fish Library, a branch of the Public Libraries of Saginaw!

Some resources that may be helpful:

• Slide deck
• Flickr photo album (will be further populated as the day goes on)
• Digital copies of handouts