Elephants

So I'm currently undertaking a PhD in Animal Computer Interaction at The Open University...  "Designing smart toys for the cognitive enrichment of elephants". 

I've been doing some behavioural studies of elephants at Colchester Zoo - Tanya, Opal, Zola and Tembo.  Check the link for some video-clips: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmakeplay/sets/72157642927226824/


Paper presented next week at AISB 2014.

3D Printing Minecraft

It was Mozilla Festival on Oct 26 2013, halfterm weekend.  My children were very excited to create and then 3D print models using Minecraft as the development tool. 

The person running the PRINTCRAFT server is Paul Harter, who used to work with my old colleague Simon Schofield on Simon's art algorithms.

Clyde created an elephant which was then saved and exported as an STL file.  The original Minecraft blocks were reduced to 2mm cubes for printing on a Makerbot 2.

We snapped off the strands holding up the trunk, cleaned out his ears and he was ready to play.

Technology Will Save Us DIY Synth

My sons are way better at soldering than me after about 5 minutes...

We went to Technology Will Save Us and Little Bits Global Make-athon at Limewharf, Vyner Street.  DIY little synths were very successful, and we also constructed Snowkilla the Iceman with revolving chainsaw...

Robot workshop with Year 4



Simple circuit

Putting the bits together

Year 4 at Chesterton are learning about circuits at the moment, so I went in to spend the day doing a bristlebot / robot workshop.  We looked at a commercially produced hexbug and the kids figured what was inside - battery, switch and vibrating motor.

No sensors, no intelligence, but cleverly designed legs.

 

Then we looked at some home-made versions, using larger toy motors and simple slide switches.  One was made with wire legs and the other had a brush for a base.



Plastic cup Dalek

The children worked in pairs, listed all the parts they would need and stripped the connecting wires.  We used pliers and sticky tape to secure contacts; matchsticks and sticky tape to scupper the motors.   

They created all sorts of great stuff.



Brush beast

Helicopter



Brush aeroplane



Octopus

Cardboard record player

 

Wood Festival 2013, DIY cardboard record player workshop from www.ifoundsound.com.  We left them on car roof but more to follow...