Habits of a life of Making

If I had all the time in the world, my mornings would look like this: 7:00 Morning run 8:00 Meditation 8:15 Make a hot breakfast for my family 9:00 Sing 9:30 Write 10:15 Tinker in my workshop 11:45 Tidy But I have three little kids, a career, friends, the vibrant treasures of Los Angeles to...

Book Review: Tinkering by Curt Gabrielson

Tinkering: Kids Learn by Making Stuff, from Maker Media, is great for parents or educators who have some experience tinkering and are looking for ideas for projects and advice on improving a tinkering workshop and fostering a culture of exploration. Author Curt Gabrielson draws on his extensive experience as a tinkering teacher at the Community...

Why Art is important to Tinkering

S.T.E.M. requires imagination and creative thought. The Arts afford easy access to creativity. That place where fragile ideas are born and cultivated, where we form connections between disparate ideas. Creating a safe harbor where chances and innovation reside is a crucial step in any Design Engineering process. Most every venture into Tinkering starts with a...

There’s Treasure Everywhere!

I keep finding myself mentally shouting “There’s Treasure Everywhere!” It’s the title of a Calvin and Hobbes book, which like all Calvin and Hobbes, celebrates the explosive power of a child’s imagination. Calvin means it literally, as he digs holes in his backyard, and by Bill Watterson figuratively that the world is full of wonders...

Tinkering @ Home #3: The Tinkering Toolkit

by Barb Noren, Lead Tinkering Facilitator, reDiscover Center There are a few different modes of building that I’ve observed: tinkering, prototyping, and making. These modes are flexible and overlapping, but have different intentions, benefits, and challenges. Tinkering is experimentation; often open-ended, without an end goal. You may reach one, but pure tinkering doesn’t have explicit...

The Tinkering Toolkit

Updated March 2017 Originally posted on November 3, 2014 on https://paperstatic.com/tinkering-and-prototyping-materials/ There are a few different modes of building that I’ve observed: tinkering, prototyping, and making. These modes are flexible and overlapping, but have different intentions, benefits, and challenges. Tinkering is experimentation; often open-ended, without an end goal. You may reach one, but pure tinkering...

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