Mike Osuna brought his new creation and shared it with us during the SCRoW. He’s demonstrating how the Squishy Circuits can be used for introducing electronics to young kids.
Squishy circuits are a project from the Thomas Lab at the University of St. Thomas. The goal of the project is to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough.
Rachel and Hesen admiring Mike Osuna's conductive playdough
Colorful Conductive Playdough
Mike Osuna and Conductive Playdough
Conductive Playdough
Playing with Conductive Playdough at Jigsaw Renaissance
All Hands Active in Ann Arbor participates with something called Bright Futures – I was on the phone with them yesterday to see how the program might be replicated at Jigsaw.
Members sign up to do a one-hour session at the established after-school program called Bright Futures. The school pays for their gas and one meal. They’ve started building out their curriculum (at least necessary materials, estimated cost, simple flow charts of how to go through a lesson).
At Jigsaw, I’d like people signed up to do this by our mini Maker Faire first weekend of June. When the inevitable teacher comes up and says “omg, how did I not know about this, I want this in my school,” we’ll have a clear way for them to interact with us. I want to do a trial run, and add what we learn to the documentation at AHA. A goal of mine is to not just go to the kids, but to have field trips to our space as well.
As we start building out that knowledge, we can easily write grants. One person from AHA recommended one person from each hackerspace participating in this sort of educational initiative can get together with everyone else and we can start to write big grants and volunteer time to do the administrivia of fundraising.
Please let me know if you’d like to participate in something like this, and what you would like to teach.
I wasn’t able to attend Eleri Hamilton’s mini bookbinding class but I did manage to take a few pictures. She crafted a cute little journal out of repurposed materials. Hopefully she’ll hold another class soon.
Bookbinder at work
The finished product!