SciPlay Research Prototyping with Sameer Honwad
This is a brief clip introducing a component of a SciPlay research project. Sameer Honwad discusses the project and a group of visiting students show how it’s done.
We all live in a Yellow Drum Machine
LetsMakeRobots will demonstrate the Yellow Drum Machine (YDM), as well as other robots by their members. The YDM is a funky little drumbot. It roams around and makes beats, and samples. They’ll also have some fun projects for you to try yourself!
Make then Destroy! Piñata Workshops! Smashing!
Sometimes the best part about making things is destroying them. Come learn this little known secret with Llaves Designs, where you will learn the art of piñata making.
Demonstrations and hands on opportunities to create hollowed papier-mâché magic.
Trapped in awe by the Life Size Mousetrap
The Life Size Mousetrap is a fantastically hand crafted, 16 piece, 50,000-lb. interactive kinetic sculpture set atop a 6,500-square-foot game board. This giant Rube Goldberg style contraption comes complete with a Vaudevillian style show, original Musical score by the one woman band Esmerelda Strange, Sexy Mice can-can dancers, clown workers, acrobatic hi jinks, and other spectacular scenes dedicated to the pursuit of spectacle-laden fun!
Find a friend, or an enemy, and play Hit Me!
Hit Me! is a two player hyper-interactive, physical game that tests speed, agility and the ability to take good snapshots. Hit Me! utilizes technology to encourage face-to-face real-world interaction between players and also spectators.
Look for it this weekend at World Maker Faire, NYC.
A swing + falling water = Waterfall Swing
The Waterfall Swing is a 19’ tall steel swing set with a computer controlled interactive water plane, capable of making shapes and text. Using water released from solenoid valves, a plane is created in front of the swing rider, a sensor tells the machine the rider’s position as shapes and messages descend around the rider’s path.
Check out the Waterfall Swing this weekend at World Maker Faire, NYC.
It’s a roboBrrd, it’s a mini dog-cow, and yes, it’s RobotGrrl!
What does a hockey playing humanoid with bad knee servos, a robot with a beak that eats virtual fruit, and a mini dog-cow on wheels have in common? The robot mesh network! RobotGrrl makes it all happen and she is inviting you along for the experience, this weekend at World Maker Faire, NYC.
Playful Learning at NYSCI
NYSCI educators will be testing three educational games this June and July. Produced by SciPlay, NYSCI’s Sara Lee Schupf Family Center for Play, Science, and Technology Learning, the games will be prototyped with middle school students, and will eventually be adapted for use in NYSCI’s Science Playground.
The goal of the games is to have the students use experimentation to understand science concepts such as rotational and linear motion, force, velocity, friction, and kinetic and potential energy. In the Rotational Motion Game, kids explore circular motion by moving a small bowling ball in a circle using a mallet, while a camera and projector track and display the ball’s path. In the Cart Activity Game, students are challenged to create either constant velocity or acceleration by pushing a cart on a linear track. In the Slide Game, light sensors positioned at the top and bottom of a playground slide help calculate each student’s speed down the slide, allowing participants to investigate friction, and kinetic and potential energy.
The three games are part of research about playful learning that is at the core of SciPlay. SciPlay aims to create hands-on experiences that instill an understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The activities created as a result of prototyping sessions and other research at SciPlay will be adapted for use in classrooms and playgrounds throughout the country.
Recent Press
NYSCI has been the focus of much media interest over the past month. Just this week, the Daily News reported on the $2 million award we received from Google to launch the Global Science Technology Initiative. Earlier this month, the Daily News also covered the kickoff planning meeting for World Maker Faire 2011.
The New York Times featured NYSCI’s Science Playground in an April 15 article about the most extraordinary play spaces in New York City. And the April 23 edition of the Times quoted both Margaret Honey and Maker Faire’s Dale Dougherty in an article about online instructions for do-it-yourself kits.
