Playful Inventions is designed for any student as an introduction to the joy of modern learning through tinkering, design, programming, physical computing, and digital fabrication. This course aims to further student's development from primarily users of technology to creative thinkers and producers. Through a mix of experiences involving tinkering, imagination and design, students will learn fundamental principles associated with physical computing, digital fabrication, and programming within a collaborative and immersive learner-centered in the IDEA Studio. During this project-based course learners will use construction kits, electronics, and more to create ignite and develop curiosity, creativity and collaboration.
The creative thinking spiral (by MIT's Mitchel Resnick) takes learners on a process of imagining, creating, playing, sharing, reflecting, and back to imagining. This process is a spiral, but creative people can move back and forth or leap to another part of the process when a thought or idea shows itself.
Tinkering is one of our best ways of exploring how the world works. Tinkering also helps us generate ideas and make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomenon.
Desktop publishing was all the rage a decade or two ago, now desktop digital fabrication is taking our world by the hand and leading us into the future.
During the course, you will learn how and when to use of tools. Through assembly activities safety protocols for using tools and the collaborative space.
Tools available (but not limited to) include:
hand tools
box cutters
hot glue gun
soldering iron
rotary tools
3D printers
laser cutter
2D plotting machines
Check out the Stores page for links to local, overseas and online stores to order parts and kits.
When learning something new and before a design process takes place one should be familiar with materials, tools, and the process of making something. Design without this familiarity is bound to frustrate even the best of designers.
As playful inventors we:
develop a "try and see" mindset
tinker with our ideas, combine materials, and make unexpected discoveries that develop creativity and inspire innovation
understand and use tinkering & design as complimentary
We live in physical world that can be augmented by the digital world that humans created. Learning to create in the physical world is still as important as learning about the digital world and it's loads more fun.
Learning electronics doesn't need to be complicated. In Playful Inventions we introduce and learn electronics and building circuits with low-floor (easy-to-learn) creative construction kits.
One of the most powerful things to do with a computer is to program it.