There were several exciting hands-on design activities offered at IDC and sponsored by The New School’s Education and Learning Initiative. These activities took place on Sunday, June 23rd between 1pm and 5pm. Interested participants could register for any of the activities individually on-site ($20). The activity by MOUSE Corps was offered at no charge.
MOUSE Corps
Presented by Marc Lesser and Meredith Summs (MOUSE)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street
MOUSE Corps is an elite team of tinkerers and innovators, working together after school to learn, make and dream with technology. Each year, youth learn human-centered design processes that help them build technology projects that address a social need. This year, we are designing adaptive and assistive technologies with volunteers at United Cerebral Palsy. As part of this showcase, MOUSE corps teens from across NYC will engage participants in mini-lessons that represent aspects of our own program year and design activities. Participants will:
- Experience some of the ways that we learn the importance of Prototyping through a short hands-on rapid prototyping challenge
- Learn about human-centered research activities that we’ve conducted to build empathy for the users that we design alongside
- Learn the basics of adapting the circuits and switches of low-cost toys as an introduction to basic circuits and adaptive design
- Experience working prototypes from four MOUSE Corps project teams
This activity is an open participatory forum and offered free of charge to all participants attending IDC.
Electronics Playground
Presented by Josh Chan and Tarun Pondicherry (Stanford)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street
Learn about how things around you work with students from Stanford’s Transformative Learning Technologies Lab. No experience required! You’ll use LightUp, a brand new learning platform for electronics, to make cool projects that interact with the world around you. Click together a few LightUp blocks into a circuit, and then program it to do what you want with Arduino, a popular programming environment designed for beginners.
Papertronics
Presented by Ariel Churi and Amy Parness (Sparkle Lab)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street
Arts and crafts with LEDs. We will create a LED circuit and design our own light up robots. The robots are little lights that can be turned off and on. Learn to use LEDs and conductive materials. Become familiar with electronic components by creating a simple electronic paper toy to take home. Materials: Markers, glue, glitter, conductive tape, pom poms, and exacto knifes for older kids.
An iOS/Acoustic Music Design Lab
Facilitated by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute
The New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12 Street
Organizer: Christopher Amos (Carnegie Hall)
This workshop will explore the intersections between musical concepts addressed in elementary music learning, the development of musical interfaces, and applications in performance and educational contexts. The workshop will include a rehearsal and performance of In C (see performance description for Tuesday evening IDC reception) using iOS mobile devices and acoustic instruments, a hands-on exploration of the musical interface, and a design feedback session and discussion that explores possibilities for future development of the project. Workshop participants are invited to participate in a public performance of the work at the conference welcome reception. No prior technical or musical experience is required to participate in the workshop and performance.
Narrative Contexts as a Design Element
Facilitated by Sesame Workshop & The New York Hall of Science.
The New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th St, Queens, NY (718) 699-0005, nysci.org
Organizers: Peggy Monahan (NYSCI), Jessie Hopkins (Sesame Workshop), David Glauber (Sesame Workshop)
*Please note this activity is from 10am-3pm. This day long, hands-on design activity held at the New York Hall of Science, New York’s hands-on science and technology center, will explore story, character, and humor as a strategies designers may use to increase engagement and understanding. Hosted by interactive writers from Sesame Workshop and exhibit designers from the New York Hall of Science, this design lab is appropriate for all who are interested in exploring narrative within interactives. Special attention will be paid to informal educational technologies and STEM topics. Workshop participants will design and build iterative prototypes that will be tested with child and family visitors in the exhibit halls. The work and discussion stemming from this event will also be featured in the IDC conference’s Wednesday evening reception, held at the New York Hall of Science.
Play Forum / Play City
GREENSPACENYC presented by Jeff Kasper (CUNY) and Laura Scherling (The New School)
The New School, 2 W 13th Street
Building a future populated by vibrant and sustainable cities rests on the growth and support of creative communities — communities and cultures that value innovation, that are characterized by a DIY spirit, and that are willing to remix the old and experiment with the present. Our lifestyles today too often increase reliance, closing our minds to possibility, and entangling us in cycles of consumption. But, through education, knowledge-sharing and the promotion of a participatory culture we might begin to disrupt this pattern and re-empower and re-ignite dormant creativity. GREENSPACENYC is pleased to introduce the Play Forum — a collaborative project created to explore how we can better integrate play into the everyday. The goal of the project is to begin conversations around how the city is experienced and how it could be. At Interactive Design and Children 2013, project organizers will lead a participatory mapping workshop and conclude with a short presentation and Q&A. The hands-on workshop portion of the event will invite participants to co-create impromptu public art – a colorful map illustrating how New York could be re-imagined to include more artistic interventions and inventive play spaces. The activity is guided by these questions: What are current examples of play within urban space? What are strategies for incorporating play into our cities through top-down and bottom-up interventions? Why is play an integral element in the development of more sustainable communities and neighborhoods? The afternoon will conclude with a conversation about the intersection of play, sustainability, and the urban environment with LEED certified architect Andrew Haner (NYU), moderated by Laura Scherling (The New School) and Jeff Kasper (CUNY).
