Last Update: 24th Mar 2023
Next Update: 4th Apr 2023
This webiste is a platfrom to share our research on tinkering as means for probelmsolving in engineering design. This objective behind this website is to share our research with multiple perspectives and at various levels of detial. To do so we are tinkering with various mediums of presenting infomration. We are continiously exploring and playing with the content, medium, format and design of this website as it evolves to meet our objective. Hence this is a wrok in progress and we will strive to make sure this contributes to the readers in some or the other way. As with any work in progress there might be some hicups and inconsistencies but be assured they are being worked on.
The gensis of this website of from the doctoral research of Mr Ashutosh Raina, who focused on tinkering as a means of problem-solving in engineering design. In this research a learning environment was designed to nurture tinkering for solving problems in engineering design. The problems to be solved in the learning environment were based on robotics to be solved using Lego Mindstorms. The participant's actions and interactions with the features of the learning environment were studied as they tinkered through activities situated in a physical space. Using methods of interaction analysis, tinkering was found to be inclusive of personalised problem-solving approaches. When tinkering, the participants were seen performing quick and focused cycles of playful exploration, experimentation and feedback, gradually letting them evolve their solution ideas or strategies. Since this evolution was seen as participant-driven, they reported a sense of agency and confidence. The inclusive learner-centric nature of tinkering-based pedagogies and learning environments should be explored and evaluated as a potential candidate for problem-based and project-based learning activities in individual and collaborative settings. You may read the extended abstract of the research under "The Story"