Reflection Questions

After several hours of cleaning my room including my desk i finally feel proud enough to show my tinkering workspace. You can hover over any parts of the image to learn more about them. y tinkering workspace. You can hover over any parts of the image to learn more about them.

Q3.1 Take a look at the LEGO serious play method. The following book forms a good introduction: LEGO Serious play open sourceLinks to an external site. Take a look at the sections discussing facilitation - Do adults need a different approach or role in facilitation? Which concepts are relevant?

According to the lecture and the LSP handbook a facilitator has various main roles. These roles globally stay the same for both children and adults. However the importance of these roles changes depending on the group. I think that children may need more clearly set boundaries than adults. Adults may need to let go of the idea that they need to make a perfect end result and may need to be facilitated to have fun and experiment more as children are more used to this. Children will need different types of scaffolding for new materials or tools than adults. Some adults may already be familiar with parts or tools, pushing away the less dominant in their party, a situation that I have witnessed often. A facilitator must then stimulate the active participation of everyone through ideation, discussion and reflection.

Q3.2 Read Invent to Learn chapter 5. Summarise the key principles mentioned by Papert and also the key principles by Montessori. Where do Papert and Montessori meet up? What is a fundamental difference in their approach? How well do their mantra's and thoughts on teaching translate to tinkering for 'children of different ages'?

Constructional learning is one of Paperts main ideas in chapter 5 of Invent to Learn. It entails a new way of learning that does not consist of memorizing facts and listening to endless lectures. Instead constructionist learning encourages students to try things and experiment, with the end goal not being to memorize certain solutions but instead form a sort of mental model of the situation or theory at hand.

Papert also believes that teachers should follow the mantra “less us, more them”. Teachers should act more as facilitators who bring students together and support them in their learning paths by letting them fail early and often. The teacher has four main roles specified in chapter 5: at the start the teacher acts as an “Ethnographer”, finding out what students already know, the teacher then acts as a “documentarian” where they visualize the thoughts and ideas of the students. Later the teacher must act as a “studio manager” where they facilitate the play and experimentation using tools and kits. Lastly the teacher must act as a “wise leader” and guide students gently through their big ideas. Papert sums this up by stating “The time in the classroom should be owned by the students, not by us [teachers]”

Montessori specifically looks at the reflection part of the process, where the goal of teachers is to of course look back and reflect but more importantly also share these thoughts as they may provoke other thoughts in other students. Montessori specifies the importance of really digging down into the students feelings after the project and not just settling for a surface level answer that suffices the general learning goals.

Q3.3 read Invent To Learn chapter 9. What are useful pointers for the space (location) and setting, what is the message? Do you need a designlab/fablab?

Chapter 9 discusses how a makerspace is more than just a collection of tools and materials, a makerspace is an area that fosters creativity, invention and experimentation. In this space “students must believe that they are inventors and creators”. This is initally done by making the area interesting and playfull for everyone. The Designlab does this perfectly with their lego tables that are spead out across the area. The designlab also has a clear entrance which mentally signals the transition from a lecture location into a more free and open creator space. Importantly the book mentions how students should feel as owners of the makerspace, they should have freedom to design, decorate and plan the space according to their wishes.

I believe that any space can be a makerspace just like the designlab. Whenever I want to tinker around or build something at home I sit behind the same desk at which I study for exams or make assignments. The transition that the book mentions is what transforms my desk into a makerspace. I will open up a drawer with all my tools and get boxes full of electronics and populate my desk with these boxes, making it into a true makerspace. Of course this is different for everyone, what works for me might not work another person.

Q3.4 Now get back to your own practice as a designer/engineer:

Q3.4.1 where in a process do you use tinkering?

Tinkering is used all throughout the process, during the initial stages where you learn what a technology can and can’t do all the way towards a working prototype that may need a bit more tweaking or debugging of unexpected features that some may call bugs.

Q3.4.2 how can you translate a design problem or research problem into a tinkering playground?

Tinkering is about learning new things. Whenever something is fun it doesn’t actually feel like learning or studying. Thus I try to analyze the problem to find a playful side and see how that can be divided into modules, blocks or parts. Next I can refine these parts to match the overall learning goals.

Q3.4.3 What can you use to get unstuck?

Whenever I am stuck one of my first tools I use is google. I believe that being able to google a problem is a key skill that is not learned in school or university but is something you have to figure out yourself. I often end up on forms such as reddit or stack overflow. Nowadays ChatGPT is where I go first when I run into issues. Sometimes when I just can’t solve the problem I just take a break or try it again the day after, turns out then that it was just a stupid mistake or a solution just pops in my head at some point.

Q3.4.4 how do you get in the flow?

For me whenever I start tinkering I first try to see what others have done before me, what sensors have they used? Are there any open source projects that can help me? I often find answers to these questions on Reddit or YouTube. As soon as I have a global idea I get to building right away and quickly iterate on designs to fix issues.

Q1.1 Tinkering is widely associated with trial-and-error and brainstorming. Find dictionary definitions of the three techniques, and compare them. Does the definition of tinkering match the definition we have in the course? Also, ask a generative AI tool for the definitions and differences. Which aspects does the answer provided miss?

According to the dictionary definitions, tinkering is more the art of repairing something as you do that casually and mostly for fun. Trial-and-error is more the experimentation and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I think everyone who has tinkered somewhat has a sad drawer filled with all the burnt and broke electronics that died in the process of trial and error. Brainstorming is a group discussion to solve problems and think of new ideas, this is more of an early stage of tinkering where you’re still planning out the project and deciding the scope. The general definition of Tinkering found in the dictionary is a very short and concise version of the definition in this course, globally it comes down to the same thing in both definitions.

After asking ChatGPT about tinkering and its definition it generally is the same as the definition in this course and dictionary definitions. However it seems to miss the fun and playful experimentation and learning involved with tinkering.

Q1.2 Can you take a typical I-Tech related project case, list and explain 5 technical hurdles? To which extent do they allow for a 'playful' approach in tackling them? Please give arguments.

As I just started iTech I will look back at a CreaTe project, the M8 project where we created a huge data visualization had many moving parts and challenges. The main challenge being integrating all the different components. After many failed attempts of using databases and connections to servers we found an incredibly easy solution: just using a google sheet. With an open source api we could load it into json and use it throughout the modules of our project. We also faced issues in manufacturing, to decide what materials would we use to build parts we tested many different materials quickly and based our decision on how easy sculpt and how sturdy a material was.

Tinkering also helped us during this project as we were able to use heavily modified 3d printers to print our project parts quickly and neatly. The lazer cutter at the designlab was used to fabricate parts that were too large or bulky for the 3d printer. Hotglue, for me a critical part of any tinkering project, saved the day in our project as some parts which were lazercut needed to be connected to 3d printed parts and these did not fit well and could easily fall apart. Our project also used a screen, the documentation of this screen could not be found, thus we had to tinker our own control board using trial and error, luckily we got it working just in time.

Q1.3 Where would you go hunting for tinkerspiration? List 5 physical and 5 online resources valuable for an I-Tech specialist. In which did you already find inspiration for a project you did or that got on your bucket list?

When tinkering I often use the facilities at the Designlab to laser cut new projects or solder components together. Occasionally when I have a larger project that isn’t exactly moveable I will use the workshop at euros, the rowing association, which is mainly used for boats. Places such as the old electronics baskets in Carre also get my mind racing with new ideas and mechanisms and the smartXP has during my Bachelors provided me with a great space to work together for projects and quickly get things done with thanks to Alfred. Besides the public places I perhaps tinker the most in my student room as I have lots of (arduino) components and tools at my disposal.

Online I often use websites such as reddit and hakster to see what others have created. Usually when I know what i want to make but have no idea how to interface with the sensors then YouTube has some good tutorials. For when I’m writing code I often use ChatGPT to generate the code, solve bugs or explain complex parts of tutorials that I don’t completely understand. I also used to use stack overflow a lot but ChatGPT can now answer most of my questions.

One main project that I finally completed recently was the BeerMeter for our bar. Since I am also part-time board there I thought it would be awesome if we could readout the value of the beer tanks downstairs to determine live how much beer was consumed that evening. This project turned out to be much more complex as just about every predecessor of mine had also attempted this project. After months of emailing with the company and 3 failed prototypes I was finally able to extract the sensor values of the beer tanks and display that at the bar.

Q1.4 List 5 domains, challenges or settings in which you would like to apply tinkering, and explain why. Can you identify some sweet spots, (perhaps beyond the well-known such as STEM education) and can you also define some limitations? Are there 'untinkerable' domains?

Digital fabrication, where projects go from a digital model on a computer to a physical object is a domain that is extremely tinkerable with one of the most notable projects being the RepRap project or the many projects of building and modifying 3D printers. I have also built a few prototypes of projects for plants, monitoring vitals and autoamtically watering or giving them light. I also think this area is extremely tinkerable due to the enormous variety of different plants applications for those plants. I have also always wanted to build a small little drone or rc airplane and think that this domain is great for tinkering, aero foils can be built out of pretty much any material and basic electronics can be used to power the plane.

Tinkering can also be used well in education, in high school together with a teacher who also taught middle school we developed an Arduino board with tons of sensors and actuators that could easily be programmed using a type of scratch that we had also developed for the board. We also added extension ports to allow for the real tinkering experience of trial and error.

During high school one of my main hobbies was tinkering with home automation. I built sensors varying from presence sensors for the lights in my room to a smart pool thermometer that integrated with HomeKit, Alexa and google home.

I try to stay away from tinkering with financial platforms as I consider the risk to be very high, however for some projects I needed to integrate a financial aspect, such as with my facemask vending machine or the house party ticketing system. For this I try to let another company handle all the financial transactions and I try to find a way to only read out that information.