Where's MacGyver? How Scarcity Can Encourage Creativity

Who remembers MacGyver? This guy was a true hero, he could make and solve anything with household items in a matter of minutes. He had a great lid too.

In a day and age where many of our children are given 1:1 devices, their own room, their own toys, even their own box of crayons and bag of supplies, why is it surprising to us that there is a loss of creativity and gratefulness?

A few weeks ago at STEAM Studio, one of our after school clubs, STEAM Club for Girls (grades 1-4), was engaged in an activity where they brainstormed, designed, then built their dream room. Being that this is our first session in our new space and we are supported by our non profit organization, STEAM Engine, supplies are limited. Some might even think they are scarce.  BUT...

...there is a bigger reason for that and here's why:

1. The sky is not always the limit:  When a child dreams big, we all are excited. Really there is no crazy idea when you are in the brainstorming stage. It's when you start thinking about planning and developing that idea, reality sets in. During our activity, we showed the students the cubbies where all the materials where. Ten cubbies with a variety of materials ranging from craft sticks, rulers, glue, marshmellows and toothpicks, scissors, tape, markers, paper, fabric, textiles, and so on.  We discussed that they needed to sketch out their room, make a list of what materials they were thinking they would need, then we would move on from there.  Sure, some of them wanted materials we did not have, pipe cleaners, stickers, or small wooden furniture. However, what happened from there was exciting to see and incredibly encouraging to hear...
2. Soft skills develop when you share: Twelve scissors for twenty - eight girls. Yep. Purposeful and planned to show them the importance of waiting your turn, sharing of resources and kindly asking someone for something you need. We role played and then gave gentle reminders. You know what? No one got stabbed out of frustration and every one of the girls got to cut what they wanted.  They learned how to move on to something else while they waited and the importance of working as a team to get through what they needed.
3. Real world application comes alive: What happens when you want to make a waterbed for your dream room and you only have some craft supplies to do it?  You brainstorm and share. One girl saw some sandwich baggies and said, "what if we put some water in a sandwich baggie,closed it, measure, cut and tape some fabric over it? we can make a waterbed!" Other girls decided to make a fish tank out of water in a baggie, then add blue food coloring. We even had a hot tub made! In the real world, there is a budget when you are building something and you may only have a limited amount of resources/materials to use. Kids need to be reminded we can't just run to the store every time we need something. You don't have to throw money at a problem to solve it.
4. Ideas ignite and brains spark solutions:  As the sharing continued, more ideas came out of the discussion. Cotton ball pillows, marshmellow and toothpicks made furniture, craft sticks  stairs, it went on and on. It literally was like watching a domino effect go around the studio. One girl would share an idea and the others would add their twist or another idea would spark. Sure, there were challenging times for them when they had to go back and figure out another way to develop their design.  Through some encouragement and thinking, they built their room from their dream.
5. A better tomorrow: We encourage our families and friends to recycle, we are trying to prepare our next generation of learners for jobs which do not even exist and for jobs we are losing to other countries. If we want to keep our country growing in a positive way, our kids need to not only think outside the box, but under it, on it, over it and all around it.

Perhaps MacGyver was on to something when he said: 

Maybe it's about time I expanded the realm of possibilities around here." (Season 1)

What realm of possibilities will you expand today?

Check out this initiative about how scarcity and creativity is being researched: http://scarcity.is/
(You can click on a word and it will show you how others are solving problems and not letting scarcity of materials or the mere definition of it hold them back from moving forward.)


Take 7 minutes and watch this video! It will open your mind about how scarcity can encourage creativity, and Gautam is pretty funny.

3D Printing: It's Hammer Time!

Just another day at the office with Dave Dalton, owner of Hammerspace!

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. 

William Butler Yeats

It's exhilarating at times when you get to see how technology is changing to improve our world. One of things I love about what I do is that I get to I venture out into the community and beyond and meet new people who help me learn about new technologies in our digital world. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Dave Dalton, the mastermind behind  Hammerspace today. He completely embodies the whole STEAM initiative through his creative mind and skill friendly approach.

One of the many 3D printers you will see at Hammerspace

Hammerspace Hobby and Community Workshop has been around for about 3 years. It is “a curious space in Brookside where tools and devices of every size are placed for you to use at the exact time they are needed. It’s like a gym for folks who build and create. It’s where you go to exercise your creativity. It’s where you bulk up your knowledge and work out your designs.” You can take a class, become a member, or just pop by and get inspired by what all kinds of people are in there designing and building.

Sound magical? Well it is. 

Think back to school when you wondered, "when am I EVER going to use this ____." Dave shares he uses much of what he learned in many of his classes. He uses trig and geometry daily as he works with spatial awareness and integrates components from the areas of STEAM through projects in this community workspace. He is passionate about the design process and how important it is for all ages to learn how to plan out their creations before just clicking "print". There are many steps before you get to  actually print your 3D object. Dave talks the importance of creating designs collaboratively and how educational it is to actually print multiple parts which all come together to create one product. Manufacturing comes alive and is incredibly exciting when a group of creators work through it all together.

That doesn't mean you can't work alone at Hammerspace and you work with recycled and eco-friendly materials. One creator created this creature below (which resembles an elephant). It was designed and manufactured through 3D printing with the material PLA (poly lactic acid). In our "throw away" society, it is important that we manufacture using biodegradable materials such as PLA which is corn based. It also uses less oil and generates less pollution. Plus, with this type of manufacturing you are only producing what you need, as opposed to mass production: high quantities that create waste. Think about the latest version of an iPhone 5 case, which takes about 6 months to design, make the molding, package and ship out to sit on the shelf for about 3 months. Then usually 1/3 of the cases don't even sell. Money is lost, more garbage to deal with and onto iPhone 6 (which is set to come out this year),where cycle starts again. 

Animal of the Future: 3D printed in this color and with movable parts, all one object (not separate parts).

This all sounds great, but what about real-world application? For example, how is the business world using 3D printing? I talked with David Reid as well today, a Principal at the national award winning Gould Evans architectural firm. He sent this pic to me to give a visual of how 3D printing has an amazing impact on their business. 

Below is an image of an architectural model for the new sanctuary at Church of the Resurrection.  Gould Evans is providing local architectural support to HGA Architects out of Minneapolis.  This is a presentation model they recently generated from a 3D printer – it’s pretty detailed as you can see and includes a removable roof section.

Is this an inside view of the Death Star from Star Wars? No, but it is the future of this world.

David explains that  there are two processes that are useful in the architectural business; 3D printing and laser cutting.  Each has a purpose with different constraints and outcomes.  Because 3D printing lays down layers of plastic, and the quality of plastic varies, careful attention needs to be made to the kinds of shapes one is trying to execute and choose the tools accordingly.  For example, if they are trying to conceptually express the height of a building via articulation of the floor levels, they will opt for a laser cutter as it utilizes bass wood. (If  they attempted this in plastic on a 3D printer, it would have been more delicate and required longer set times to avoid sagging while the plastic was still warm.)

"Don't let the sales gimmickry of 3D printers fool you into thinking you'll save magical amounts of time.  There's a lot of effort required to get the 3D model to a printable form.  But once you do, it's much easier to make modifications from which we can generate alternative design ideas to be evaluated in physical 3D form." 

David Reid, Principal at Gould Evans

Next time you need something or your child asks for a new toy. Think of how you could actually DESIGN, CREATE and BUILD it, and go do it! Head over to Hammerspace and manufacture something YOU can be proud of and then think of way to make it even better. Don't keep filling your pail with useless objects. 

Light a fire and use your mind.

Check out this dad who made his son a prosthetic hand with 3D printing. Unbelievably cool.