Tinkering is an amazing way to evoke a passion for learning within the classroom setting. As a student who has been “tinkering” her whole life, I can relate to this form of creating and personally express how much I have learned from it. In my hometown, we have the Rochester Institute of Technology, where each year they put on Imagine RIT. This event connects art to science and allows young children to experiment and create all types of projects through tinkering. When watching “The Art of Tinkering” video from Stanford, it brought back the memories that I had from tinkering at RIT. At the Stanford event, there is an emphasis on people coming together to produce collaborative learning. People of all ages, but especially kids worked to create new objects or take apart something to learn about how it functions. This form of discovery and learning, benefits young minds to think about the environment around them and expand their knowledge of how the world works.

The maker movement helps to build on a community that comes together, consisting of both experts and the public, strengthening the idea of collaborative learning. They don’t even specifically design this type of learning for kids, but clearly for all ages to get engaged in the art of tinkering. Encouraging the students to not shy away from things is beneficial because as a teacher so you can give them their first experience with certain materials. The various stations with activities have goals set in place, where the learners can build upon with their prior interests and knowledge.  The materials presented to them invite for greater inquiry and the experts do not give any step-by-step explanation, allowing for the learn to create multiple pathways. The expert or teacher can then make the challenge harder by adding different aspects to it. Facilitating the stations this way sparks interest, especially when models are created ahead of time. It is also important to encourage questions and what-if scenarios. After they complete the activity it is important to reflect upon what they learned and how they grown from it. Having onlookers assess the work  is a great way to learn more about your own work. One interesting aspect of the art of tinkering is that often, you will have to leave behind your work. This means the next people who come to that station can add onto what you did and learn from your past creations, also enforcing collaborating on work.

When I have a future classroom I would love to introduce tinkering projects, such as creating the spinning tops out of found materials. This is great for a classroom setting because you can have students bring things from the trash to repurpose. This way parents will not worry about students taking things that they may not want to be ruined. If the school is in a not as affluent region then they can create these tops with no cost. I also would use the bracelet making as an activity because once again, they can use found objects that would not normally be used for jewelry. You can do this in an art education setting that is informal, because you can encourage students to go outside and gather materials once again from the trash or nature. Most schools also have legos, so I would present students with challenges on what they could produce with legos. For example, creating models for an architecture plan.  This can expand their ideas on what is art and how it can be related or used in technology. These activities can be implemented in choice based and student centered learning to encourage individuality and experimentation inside of the classroom.

First Choice: Zimoun- Sound/ Simple Machines: I love integrating sound into artwork, so that it evokes more senses. I also love the architectural aspect of the work. In a classroom setting you can use many of the materials, including cardboard, which is very accessible. It gives the students a design thinking process by having them create sound with simple household materials.

Second Choice: Camille Utterback- Installation, Sculpture, Dance, Interactive, Public : I love how she uses a variety of materials and also explores the art of dance. It would be very interesting to create piece that involves all of the aspects of her work including dance. I believe it would be a really cool activity to get students involved in, because they can think of their bodies as an art form.

Third Choice: Lucy McRae- Wearable, Video: Theses pieces involve wearable art, which would be really fun to implement in a classroom setting to express how art comes in so many different forms. Her work really evokes emotion and gives this sort of creepy feeling.  It almost has a fashion like element which many young students haven’t experienced much of and shows different design elements.

The Invisible Girl

Pac man

Endless Circle Loop

Painted Emotions

The Lost Oreo

Beads

The first thing that we asked prior to creating our stop motion video was, “how are we feeling.” My group came up with the idea of nostalgia during this time of growing up, because we were all feeling the pressures of reality. We decided to relate our idea to the old fashioned game of Pac Man. It relates to how we were missing the way things were, as well as feeling like we cannot catch up with life. Almost as if the demons, or in the case, the ghosts are always chasing us.  My group was also feeling hungry when we made the video, which can be interpreted through the pac man eating the little dots. The material we decided to work with was play doh to convey the childishness of the game and how life is catching up with us. We built a background with construction paper and crayons to bring the piece together. Creating the figures was really fun as a group, and when it came to the actual filming, we had Shay take the images, while Angela and I moved the pac man and ghosts into place. Our team work went really well, and I think making this a group project is a great idea to implement inside of a classroom to allow students to become engaged with each other and share thoughts. I was shocked by how many different interpretations that the class had and they all were spot on. It was really great to see how everyone else has been feeling during these times as well, and to get to share our emotions in an artistic way.

In my second group stop motion movie, we all had a common theme of emotions and how they can effect the people we are around. At first, we really had no clue on where we wanted to take our idea, so we grabbed play doh and clay like our other classmates. We played with molding it to try to come up with something, but that wasn’t working, so we created a storyboard. We were inspired by William Kentridge and wanted to make something similar to his work, but with a different medium. We decided to use finger paint and connect each color to an emotion. Creating prototypes, we asked the questions of what emotions we should convey, and decided as a group to show mad, happy, and sad. Sad was connect to blue and happy was connected to yellow. They then crossed paths, creating green, which is content. As a group we enjoyed the playfulness of finger paint and worked on making little transitions by erasing the work. We evaluated the work and decided to mix all the colors at the end and write “the end” to make the video come together. We worked well, because we had one person take the images while two of us worked on painting the scene. We all contributed ideas and made sure everyone was comfortable with the decisions that were being made, especially when it came to the materials used. In an art classroom it is great to open the project to any form of medium, such as clay, paint, paper etc. This allows students imagine what they could create with each material, therefore expanding their creative thought process.

For my next stop motion, I was inspired by the ability to create a floating object. I had never done this before and first had to ask myself how to achieve that effect. In the film I wanted to show a flying pear, and by doing so I used a clear piece of string. I was inspired by the idea of feeling invisible within the world. I first drew out a plan asking what would be the beginning, middle, and end. This helped me to have a cohesive plan, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do when taking the photos. I used a pair of converse to show the girl walking down the stairs and hallway. She then goes to open the fridge, and proceeds to take a pear from the fridge. Next, she walks over to a chair. I wanted to convey the weight of a body by messing up the chair cushions to make it appear as if she was taking a seat. I then ended it by having her take some bites out of the pear. I had so much fun creating this video and telling a short story, especially because I was working with real household materials, which is a technique I hadn’t done yet. This was one of my favorite stop motions to do, because when using imagination and combining it with stop motion you can give unanimated objects life. This is a great thing to introduce to young children, because as a child I would imagine a teddy bear or barbie coming to life, and with this art form, an educator can really inspire students to get creative and give life to objects.

William Kentridge inspired me once again with the endless circle piece, where I drew a circle growing a shrinking. I wanted to keep this black and white, to relate it to Kentridge’s work. This piece was challenging to make sure that the camera didn’t move too much. I had not created a loop yet, so this was a different way to create a stop motion video, as well as using a different material than before.

I was really enjoying creating the videos, so I made the stop motion with the beads just for fun. I asked myself, what are some materials that are not normally used for creating shapes, and I found some old beads. I enjoyed pushing them around at first to see what I could design. Then, I started taking pictures and slowly moved them into various shapes. I had to restart a couple of times, because I was struggling with getting everything into the frame. Once I got the hang out it, it went smoothly.

The last stop motion I created was, telling the story of a lost Oreo. I had been craving something sweet, so cookies and milk became my inspiration. I created a storyboard to make sure all of my ideas were well thought out and planned properly. This process was harder than expected, because balancing and Oreo on a string is not as easy as it may seem. Next, I really wanted to get the effect of the cookie climbing up a table and sinking into the milk. So, I had to carefully inch up the string to get the desired effect. After evaluating the video, I noticed my hand in a few shots, so I re-shot segments to make it flow.

I had the most fun creating the pac man video as well as the invisible girl, because both of them have a fun idea on the outside, but when taking a greater look at the meaning, one can learn that they are much deeper. In a classroom, a teacher can present students with a word or picture, and then have them create a scene that comes to life through stop motion animation. Having students work in groups, allows them to develop problem solving skills, so I would use this to encourage the sharing of ideas.  Stop motion animation is an easy yet fun way to use technology to create art and let imagination, social, and technological skills develop inside of the art room.

Nettrice Gaskins comes from a mother who was a hidden figure in computer programming. This caused Gaskins to have an interest in how technology and science can play a role within education and art. One of her main goals is to break down the walls that have been built inside of the classroom. She wants to tear down those boundaries in order to implement design thinking and various technologies in lessons. Two people that inspired her greatly are Einstein and Grandmaster Flash. Physics played a huge role in Flash’s creation of music, where he played with electronics in his home and neighborhood to develop innovations. He really emphasizes the idea of how the theory of relativity shows how properties of sound and nature influence the world around us. It can grab the attention of young people, especially though music making, and it allows for Einstein’s ideas to become relevant in their everyday lives. There is also the notion of “Beat Jazzers” such as Onyx Ashanti who atomizes music culture by physical computing, to then allow for past, present, and future genres of music to be studied and abstracted. His goal is to have the “beat jazzers” become just as popular as regular DJs in society. This process of sound and creating is a great lesson to bring into maker culture and education. Nettrice Gaskins does tinkering, such as producing a sound glove herself. This glove converts colors to sound, so in a sense someone could “play” a painting. She then introduced this project to her students where they saw the creation and remixed their own version of the piece. This brings forth new conversations about what kinds of lessons and technologies are possible to fabricate within a classroom setting. Many educators can use her ideas to remix their own classrooms and include a time for tinkering for students.  With in increase in technological advances,  STEAM education is more important than ever to be introduced. This is especially effective to introduce in a middle school classroom or younger. Once students get to old it is hard for them to make these connections between science, technology, and art. In many schools it is important to make sure that students can create culturally responsive work. Many classrooms have limited resources, so Gaskins discusses how one can make bins of found items that spark imagination and create curiosity. Group work is also an important aspect of a culturally inclusive classroom, so that students can collaborate and learn from one another. The teacher can push desks together and cluster groups of students and also use the materials to create a contemporary art studio. Even with limited resources, using these ideas can create a great maker space or even a STEAM lab. As an educator, I will implement so many of Nettrice Gaskins’ lessons in order to create an experience that combines both art and STEM into the classroom.

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When presented with the word apprehensive the first thing that came to my mind was anxious and specifically the act of shaking. My group decided that at first we would make a model using the original doodle bot template and then slowly temper with changing certain aspects of the bot. One of the first things we all agreed on was using a pen, in order to make a thinner and lighter line compared to a marker to enhance an uneasy feeling. Then we decided to take paperclips and undo them into straight figures, while then taping popsicle sticks to create added support. When I think of being apprehensive I think of shaking or nervousness. As a group we decided to put marbles in the cup to create sound and movement. This model didn’t end up working the way we wanted because the paperclip legs were not stable enough. We then created another model that was extremely unsuccessful once again because it was too heavy since there were too many marbles place inside the cup. Next, we got inspiration from our fellow classmates to use a tin can to create more noise for when the marbles move around. To work on the style of the bot we wanted to keep it all gray in order to show unhappy feelings and the anxiety that comes with apprehension. By using markers as legs we made a stable bot, then we kept our prior model idea with the pen to create markings. The marks were very light and trembled like a hand of a person who is scared.  We also decided to use two motors in order to get more of a rocking motion by placing them on either side of the bot. Then, to create the scene we made little monster creatures to stand in front of the bot, almost as if they are bullies making the doodle bot nervous to go up to them. The bot continues to slowly turn away while shaking. I learned several things from my classmates that inspired me such as the metal can. I also learned different ways to use the motor instead of just using it to make the bot move. For example, the group that had “nurturing” really conveyed the idea of a baby/child very well by making the motor into a spinning hat. I also learned that it is so important to keep revising our ideas to keep improving. We made many mistake along the way such as using paperclips that are not sturdy enough, but by making these mistakes we were able to improve and get our idea across, even thought it took several different tries.

Inside a classroom setting, I would love to implement this as a lesson because it is an amazing way to teach kids how to learn from their peers and keep improving and revising things for the better. Doing activities like the doodle bots are simple enough for kids to learn but you can keep adding different aspects to them, and creating fun challenges to engage everyone. One challenge idea I would implement in a classroom is challenging the students to not be able to use props and really make them focus on the movement of the bot and how they can convey an emotion through that. This really got me thinking about how art can include technology and making a little robot like creature that then creates its own art is a really different experience, especially for young learners. It also encourages students to work as a team and combine their brain power. It engages students to think about different process of creating art in ways that they are normally not presented with inside of a classroom environment. Art creates connections between the viewer and the emotions a piece can project. This project is a great way to practice creating emotion through artwork. It is so important for students to show and express themselves through some type of outlet, and art is what believe to be one of the most successful ways to do so.