Ryan Jenkins's Blog

Over the weekend I had a chance to test out a new tinkering activity in the local forest with the Naturwerkstatt Breisach eV. and engage kids and adults in playful expe...

Last weekend, while participating in an education conference at the Swiss Science Center Technorama in Winterthur, I made sure to take some time to explore the extensiv...

As part of a ongoing experience developing tinkering projects for young learners (roughly ages 3-5 years old) I’ve been connecting with my original WICO collaborator Ni...

This past weekend I led two experimental tinkering workshops at the bildungs congress (education conference) at Technorama science center in Winterthur, Switzerland. Fo...

The past weekend I got the chance to participate in a wonderful community festival in Freiburg called "kinderkunstdorf” or children’s art village. This was my second ti...

Recently I’ve been experimenting with materials sets and prompts that focus on the idea of tinkering with young learners (roughly ages 2-6). I got inspired by a conversation with Nicole Catrett about her experiments with roly poly rollers at a local preschool. These simple bots with interchangeable wheels have their roots in motion board, another experiment that we tried with Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland a few years back.

Last year I spent several months developing concepts and testing prototypes for playful, art-infused and open-ended light and optics exhibits at Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg as part of a museum wide renovation. After several iterations we sent our plans to the fabricators and in the last couple of weeks the ‘final’ version of the exhibits debuted on the floor of the museum. I wanted to share the photos and videos of the results of the collaboration and I’m looking forward to future collab...

This summer, WICO friend and collaborator as well as the author of Hex Allen and the Clanksmiths, Jasmine Florentine is releasing a new book on August 5th that combines...

When integrating any new technology into tinkering activities it’s important to engage with open prototyping and collaborative reflection about the process. This past w...