New Exhibit: Tools and Toys, Paper Mechatronics
Second Floor
MSTU 5027: Tools and Toys for Knowledge Construction is a hands-on design course offered in the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design program that introduces students to the core tenets and techniques of constructionist design. Simply put, constructionism proposes that learning happens best when learners are engaged in the construction of a personally or communally meaningful public artifact or object.
To this end, students encounter and connect to constructionist design by exploring, using, and evaluating existing educational technologies and fabrication equipment specifically designed to engage learners in personally meaningful construction.
The “paper mechatronics'' artifacts displayed here are one of six projects completed by students. In this project, students were asked to create an interactive art exhibit. Students collectively chose the theme “Fantasy Creations” for their exhibition and have worked in pairs for three weeks to design and construct the artifacts you see before you out of wood, paper, cardboard, cloth, and a lot of glue! Interactive behaviors are programmed by students using the GoGo Board–a microcontroller developed by Teachers College Professor Paulo Blikstein.
We invite you to play with the exhibit! Push a button or touch a sensor to see what happens. While you play, think about how the students may have programmed the behaviors, or what physical mechanisms might be used to make the motion. And also consider how designing both the physical objects and the digital code may alter how one comes to understand things like gear ratios, simple machines, circuitry, material properties, engineering, and a whole host of ideas, concepts, and practices!
Where: Collaboration Space, Second Floor
When: October 24th - November 29th
