Wall Climbing Whatsits
One of the Creativity Lab’s top priorities is to get our community comfortable with the idea of making things, and perhaps more importantly, to learn to be persistent when things get tough and to learn from mistakes made along the way, whatever the project.
Take for example the challenges 2nd graders have faced trying to get busy making our Wall Climbing Whatsits. Students were shown a model made from the inner cardboard of a toilet paper roll, snipped pieces of straw and two equal measures of string, a popsicle stick, and some hollow (and straw-like) coffee stirrers.
If you’re familiar with Arvind Gupta’s Toys from Trash website, you might recognize this trashier rendition of his “Climbing Cat” project, and you may even know that you can get the cardboard cylinder to climb by pulling outward on the handles at the end of each string. Students weren’t given this information. Instead of knowing what the contraption was or what it could do, they broke up into design teams: each group took some time to exam the model, to discuss the materials and tools they might need to make it, and to make speculative inferences on what, if anything, the contraption could do.
Students wondered if it was a twirling toy or an elevator or perhaps, if it could somehow fly; I was delighted that some of their inferences were so close to being bulls-eyes, and they were amazed when they saw the thing in action. They got to work, and early on, a few of them came to realize what they had initially failed to see: that the design is in the details; specifically, that holes made through the cardboard cylinder need to have a narrow diameter so that coffee stirrers won’t slip out. Another realization had to do with the placement of those holes-how the distance between holes differs between the top and bottom sides of the Whatsit.
Little Hands Hard at Work
2nd graders had a really hard time deciding where to place and how to make their holes the right size. It was also challenging to get the stirrers to stay in place, and perhaps hardest of all, was the task of threading the string through the stirrers once they were finally secure in the cardboard. Watching them struggling through the work, I realized there was a design flaw that could be altered to make the project more feasible for their small hands, and for the level of fine motor skills they had.
When they came in the following week, they had two models to exam. The first was the previous model, and the second was the newer, altered one. It was their job to exam each, to discuss differences between the two with their design teams, and to use these discussions to ascertain what had changed in the newer model, and how those alterations might benefit the making process for their own Wall Climbing Whatsits. They quickly realized that stirrers had been ditched in favor of straws, and it didn’t take long for someone to figure out that a hole puncher (conveniently placed out on the supply and tool table) makes perfect sized holes for straws to fit through. When it came time to thread the string, the task was one that they could successfully manage.
Time For Modifications
Even with these design improvements, there was a lot of frustration around the room. Students wanted to give up, but I continued to urge them on, letting them know how their mistakes were part of the learning process. There were a couple of students that did throw in the towel, but many others struggled through and persisted. All in all, though, difficult as it was, the project is another step in getting students familiar with the ideas of failing forward and the tenacity needed to turn hard fun into a trashy toy model that gets a toilet paper roll to climb, climb, climb.
Time to figure out what we’ll be pulling out of the trash next!
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About John Howard
JT taught Making in the Creativity Lab's after-school program during the first year of this program (2013-14). He is currently studying creative writing at the Indiana University.
