Parapan-Am 2015

With the Parapan-American Games coming to Toronto this summer, we asked our Invention Squad to design a game for teams of blind players and one participant in a wheelchair. In creating a new sport, we're not making an object, we're designing a working system.

In order to better understand the constraints of this task, we had a Q and A with guest participant: John Willis. John is an inclusive designer (meaning he designs with people of all abilities in mind) and is also blind himself. He talked to the kids about what sports are fun for him to play and what things he tries to avoid at all costs (fast moving balls, tall hard obstacles).

With these user constraints in mind, we brain-stormed to come up with a blended game. We had lots of ideas as a group. Elektra and Zachary thought of a flag capture game, where the wheelchair participant has five flags and two teams of non-sighted players try and find the flags, with directions from two sighted guides. We test played this for two rounds.

When users test a game it is really obvious what works and what needs improving. Overall the verdict was that this game was quite fun, but that:

• The flags need to stick out from the wheelchair all in one place (to avoid the crazy groping)
• There should be some way of limiting the amount of time a blind person can touch the chair  (same reason as above). Maybe a ref is needed to enforce this?
• There needs to be a way to slow the wheelchair down -or maybe there should be multiple wheelchair participants (to "confuse it up" some more)
• The flags could be different textures for the two different teams
• There might be blind people with flags (should these guys also be able to get flags)?
• Our guest designer, John pointed out, that we might want to modify the game so that the blind participants have more autonomy i.e. they are experiencing the game through their own senses more. 

Round one of prototyping done. Lots of great design modifications by our young inventors. 

Rock On!

This week's Invention Squad challenge was to use found materials to make musical instruments. We asked the kids to make a string instrument (with at least four different notes) or a percussion instrument that can generate four different sounds. Then join a band -or fly solo- and make some noise (aka music)!

Some of the kids made percussion decks with hanging gongs, foil cymbals and fork xylophones. 

Others experimented with changing pitch by altering tension, gauge and length of strings. Some designs posed questions about acoustics: how does dampening affect the quality or timbre of the note? What role does a sound chamber have for the volume of my sound? How on earth can I get any note from this crazy thing I just made? 

As the class ended (never mind the near-deafened instructors), the kids gave an enthusiastic performance on their instruments. The eclectic selection included a rousing Jingle Bells, a body-slamming, foot stomping, clave-playing solo from Zachary, Roar-the small girl cover and a stylish percussion improv from the boys.  

Move over Lady Gaga

In this week's fashion challenge, we encouraged wild self expression as we created superhero-popstar outfits. Aesthetics is often an important part of design: so we wanted them to upcycle something good looking! We gave the squad a mixture of vintage garments (from the 70's and 80's of course), other textiles and interesting materials (deflated mylar balloons, faux fur pieces, mesh) and asked them to make a new and theatrical outfit. The emphasis for this class was also on fun- can they make something playful and unexpected? You bet they can!

Many of the kids worked in groups, using fast sketches to merge their ideas. Armed with scissors, colourful duct tape, safety pins and elastics this was an exercise in creative destruction. Sometimes we have to take something apart to design something better. In our fashion remixes we support girl and boy power, drama and individualism.

The class ended with the kids strutting their costumes through the studio. Bravo!!

Design-a-thon 2014

Invention Squad ran this year's Design-a-thon at Niagara St. PS.

A team of talented designers ran hour-long workshops throughout the school to give the grade students a whole day of hands-on challenges. 

In the Fancy Footwear workshop, the kids designed and constructed their own shoes out of paper and glue. Students were asked to incorporate four different methods of creating strength using just these very limited materials. The kids made some amazing footwear- both fancy and functional!

The Critterville workshop challenged kids to build an animal home from picnic wear (plastic cutlery,  foam cups, paper plates, straws and coffee stirrers). The students explored how to join materials in novel ways to shape and stabilize their structure. We asked them to do this with no glue and as little tape as possible. This encouraged them to think about strength, balance and material manipulation-all critical  qualities for architects and builders. Despite the fact that kids love tape, some of them rose to this engineering puzzle! 

In Logomania, the students learnt some of the elements of graphic design and branding. They came up with vibrant pen drawings of logos for the Toronto Zoo, the Design-a-thon itself and Invention Squad.

In the Mouse House workshop students explored paper engineering to make pop-up houses. Many of them enjoyed painting their pictures in exuberant colours.

Robot Design was a very free-form workshop run by Walnut Studios and a couple of volunteer OCAD students. Students animated found materials to create a whole range of charming robots.

In the Skyscrapers workshop the design challenge was to build the tallest structure possible out of construction paper. Some of the groups formed teams and turned this into a competition. Students were introduced to concepts of mass, tension and compression and how to mitigate these using trussing and cross-bracing.  

Invention Squad would like to thank all the fabulous designers, volunteers and school staff who made this fun event possible!!

Evil Geniuses

This week the design challenge was to build a contraption that can fling a boulder across the room.

from http://silverhawkauthor.com/book-siegecraft-no-fortress-impregnable_279.html

The Grade 5 and 6 students worked on constructing siege catapults (Roman Mangonel style). These required a very sturdy base and vertical support-no trivial matter when all you have to use is craft sticks clothes pegs and tape. The throwing arm was levered to the base with a bull clip fulcrum and stretched back with an elastic band. Pull the arm back and fling! Launch your foil boulder into the air.

Some of our budding engineers managed to improve their catapults-Elizabeth suggested more robust materials like wood and nails, Joseph and Jabeez worked out how to truss their structure. Zachary modified his catapult by adding a pull back tab and noticed that the angle of release and the size of the boulder affects how high and far it goes.

To build a prototype, test it, evaluate and improve it, is part of the design spiral we are teaching the kids.  In this workshop, the kids followed a set design plan, but then refined their catapults to improve their function.

from http://discoverdesign.org/design/process

Meantime the Grade 3 and 4 kids were evil geniuses in revolt. They decided to modify balloon slingshots into their own more exciting creations. Reinventing the workshop on the spot. There was a decadent looking "hugging slingshot" designed by Elektra, which spurred on the other kids to make crossbows and various catapult accoutrements.