Alex and I are working on a visitor experience that will happen in the new GIANT atrium space in the New Science Centre. We’ve stopped counting what version of this program we are on, but I think the multiple iterations are worth it.

Yesterday was a very exciting day because we took 6 of the new activities to the Boys and Girls Club to try them out with the 45 kids who are participating in day camp there.  (Sidenote – this organization is inspiring, and they do incredible work)

SPOILER ALERT!

One activity in particular was a huge hit. It was called, “Human Hockey Puck.” We found some plans online that Alex and our shop wizard Bill have edited to make the perfect hovercraft. It’s essentially made out of ½ inch plywood and a leaf blower. So, students got to ride the hovercraft while their friend tried to “shoot” them into the hockey net. One student, Quinn, emphatically exclaimed, “That was the best thing in the entire universe!” We’ve heard best thing in the world, but never the whole universe.

Here’s hoping the final version of the Atrium program is even a quarter as exciting to visitors as it was to Quinn.

Carly

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If you haven’t read Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, and you work in any creative or idea driven field, I highly suggest you read it NOW.  The Manifesto really helps steer me in a constructive direction when I need to refocus.  I’ve been trying to get several projects organized right now, and the blog seemed like a really great place to organize some of my thoughts.    With that in mind, today let’s focus on Manifesto Point #9:

“BEGIN ANYWHERE – John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis.  His advice:  begin anywhere”.

This notion is such a relief, and when starting a project, knowing that you can begin anywhere, and truck along towards progress is really the way to go.  This is the thinking behind how we developed our new grade 6 air program.  At the initial concept development stage for this program, I was super stuck.  These poorly drawn diagrams illustrate what direction this program was going in, but it didn’t feel right for several reasons.  So I discussed with various team members. 

Figure 1. Initial brainstorming...

Figure 2. More brainstorming and poorly drawn diagrams.

Everything brainstormed sounded like a) something a teacher could do in their classroom just as well as we could b) something that could lead to ‘fake science’ notions c) just tired and less relevant than the ideal final outcome.  My lab mate Katherine noticed my mental block and after chatting it out we discovered that a) I was stuck on learning outcomes instead of ‘cool things we can do with air’ and b) we needed to have a mini rig with the rest of the team. 
The functional definition of a rig may be floating around somewhere else on this blog, but just as a refresher:  RIG – Rapid Idea Generation.  For our purposes, we just got everyone in the lab, and they had one task that they had to do: prove to me that air exists.  They could use any of the bins in the lab, any material that was necessary to prove to me that air exists.  I told them I didn’t believe air existed because I can’t see it.  They found SEVERAL VERY AMAZING ways to prove to me that air exists. 

Figure 3. Alan said he could prove to me that air exists if I got into this plastic bag. I ignored common sense and jumped in...

Figure 4. Stacey helped arrange the plastic bag, while Alan got the vaccuum ready.

Figure 5. Alan gets his experiment on the go. All you need is one volunteer (me), a vacuum, and a plastic bag and you can really feel the change in air pressure as you are vaccuum sealed into a plastic bag.

Figure 6. This experiment was not as affective with two people in the plastic bag...but we were trying to see how many people could potentially be included in this experience.

Figure 8. Pat did not expect the sudden change in air pressure/intense quishing sensation. Thanks for trying it out Pat!

Figure 9. Look carefully at this photo! Alex made himself an 'air detector'. It was so great! Essentially a glorified headband with a propeller (red thing over his head) so you can SEE when air is interacting with it! Look at him go!

Figure 10. Stacey, Alan, myself and half of Alex's head watching the other developer's present their proof that air exists.

Figure 11. This photo does not need a caption.

From here we were able to hone in on some things that felt right, and were more in line with the direction I wanted to take the air program.  I really liked the idea of ‘air detectors’ as a concept.  Although the air detector hat Alex created was not the most tangible idea, I loved the idea of having students prove to the facilitator that air exists by doing their own experiments; having them use what they already know about air to prove its existence.  This created a concept to move this program forward, and the rest of the developers helped me select bins of materials I could use when testing.  They selected tons of great materials including aluminum foil, tissue paper, packaging peanuts, cellophane, coloured gels, Mylar, tinsel, Tygon tubing, other tubing, turkey basters, propellers, plastic straws, plastic bags, bubble wrap, Nalgene containers, balloon pumps, air pumps, other pumpy devices, gliders, turbines, dryer tubing.  It was awesome to realize that that as a group of developers, we moved this program from a good future program, to what may be a great future program. 

Figure 12. A much more exciting batch of programming ideas. Thanks everybody!

I know the above Post-It Notes scan is pretty blurry, which is intentional, to leave you in suspsense!  I’ll follow up on how this program pilot went shortly; in the meantime I will leave you with Manifesto Point#3

 “Process is more important than outcome – when the outcome drives the process we will only ever go where we’ve already been.  If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.”

-Claudia

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For the past year, we have been experimenting with how young children play. This time we wanted to experiment with the way that young children play with Air.

The first pilot we tested was called “Ceiling Waves”,

It consisted of a large piece of fabric was attached to the tower, the other end was down on the floor with a handle so kids could experiment making waves. Objects were placed beside it to see if kids could bounce them.

The kids really liked doing this. It was really powerful to see a small child manipulating such a big object. Many kids tried putting objects on the fabric and bouncing them off. It took about two minutes for one child to have the idea to go to the top of the tower. It was funny, because he forgot to bring up the balls, so once he got up there, he had to come down and get the balls – delayed exhilaration!

Really liked the collaborative aspect of this pilot. While one person was up, the other had to be down, and they had to call instructions to one another. While two children where bouncing balls back and forth, another child went underneath and was delighted to see the shadows of the balls bouncing on them.

Another exhibit that we tried was called “Kite Flying”

We hung a kite and let the kids manipulate how high and low it flies. It was placed directly in front of a wind current for added animation. Kids loved pulling the string, often they didn’t even know where the string went. If kids pulled the string too hard the kite would get stuck on the top beam. I really liked this aspect of it. Having the string as thin as it was influenced the kids to be more gentle with it. Although this caused another problem, as it was hard to see and the kids would trip over it. I really liked seeing a kite flying indoors.

Next we tried a pilot called “Air Pump Table”

There were two different sets of “launching” stations: One with continuous air stream, the other with an air hand pump.
The hand pump was really interactive. It made a squeaky sound that the kids really liked playing with. Some kids didn’t stay long enough to try to understand what the pump did, they just ran up to it and pumped it, delighted by the noise it made.

Other children tested different materials to float or make fly with the help of the air. Some kids took the pvc pipe and created an air maze. The kid that was working on this even said, “I like this. It makes me feel like an inventor!”

Reflection Sailing

 
On the surface of the air hockey table are several island pieces which can be moved around to different locations, and a sailboat which is an air hockey puck with a small sail attached.

This didn’t really work, as kids just wanted to play air hockey on it instead of pretending they were sailing from island to island. That was ok. Competitive games like air hockey promote cooperation, among players, which in this case happened to be complete strangers.

Things we learned: air is magical! Ok it isn’t, but because we can’t see it it makes things fly and float, which IS magical, kind of. I also liked how most of the experiences were vertically, most of the things that we tested went up and down, which didn’t take up a lot of real estate and got kids looking up.

We tested a few other pilots which were well received. It was wonderful to see so many kids on a day were we were closed. Thank you to all the homeschool parents and kids that made the long way here on such a cold day!

The question that both kids and parents wanted to know was if these “pilots” were going to become exhibits. That we don’t know, but the behaviors that we witnessed will definitely help to shape the exhibits in the new creative kids museum.

Evelyn

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