Marble Run Focus questions:

• Compare/contrast marble run and glitch art.
  The marble run was similar to the glitch art assignment in the way that both activities were new experiences for me and required me to brainstorm and organize my thoughts in new and inventive ways. Both assignments had an element of unpredictability so the process for each felt a bit like diving in blindly and required lots of trial and error to get the desired results. Unlike the glitch art however, the marble run had a time limit which definitely effected our decision making during it’s process. In the beginning, it started out with playful exploration of the materials we’d gathered and as the time ticked away, towards the end we found ourselves having to make more practical judgement calls for times sake. The glitch art was an independent assignment where as the marble run was a group effort. Working with others is always a great challenge, as it forces us to think and plan in ways that compliments the ideas of another. We also had more materials to work with during the marble run and the ability to work with the materials with our hands made the process feel more engaging.
  
• How did your group’s process reflect design thinking?
  We each began playing around with our gathered materials while trying to honor the criteria and project expectations that were listed. We pondered questions like “What would provide our structure with the most stability?” “Which objects would create the most surprising sound” or “What extra elements can we add to this section to make it more interesting?”.  We weren’t thinking on a large scale as much as we were considering how to make what we had, as involved and creative as we could. This design oriented thinking ended up serving us well as the creative elements that we came up with helped to gain us the points we needed to make up for the points that we lacked in size.

  What did you learn? Describe your learning process. What was most challenging? What was most fun?
  It was interesting to see where my brain took me with a project that involved my attention in such a specific way with specific goals that were to be supported by solving the unavoidable challenges like having to consider weight, gravity, etc…My brother is a civil engineer who works designing bridges and so I really enjoyed the marble run assignment as it reminded me of the kind of creative problem solving that does go into fields such as architecture and engineering. I also learned a lot from observing all the other marble runs from different groups. I was really impressed to see what other designs people came up with. The most challenging part of the assignment was trying to make sure that the structure was stable enough to hold the weight of all the different elements that we worked to include. The most fun part was when an idea would work and when the whole thing came together!

  How did this activity connect (or not) to your prior knowledge of art and art education? How might you use and/or adapt this activity in an art classroom?
  I’ve never done a project like this before but the creative problem solving process was similar to the ways in which I’ve had to brainstorm creative projects in the past. When I create my own personal art work, (My work mainly consists of illustration and embroidery) there are of course rules to art making through the knowledge that I have on how to use and manipulate the mediums I’m using to get desired results to match my creative visions – But overall, it tends to be more open ended and “feeling driven” where as with the marble run, there were more practical elements of design to consider. I could see kids and teens loving this assignment! It might be a little too challenging for elementary and middle school students, although I think it could also be simplified for those age groups. For high schoolers, I might change up some of the different goals and standards that their structures are expected to meet and I think I would focus more on what creative visuals they could add to it to really encourage them to personalize their marble runs.