Mix paint-brushes pigment, canvas
and craft materials. In this workshop you'll use programmable bricks,
buckets of paint, paper, canvas, and motors to make an animated
art machine. Use sensors to explore color and light. Program your
machine to react to an audience to spin faster and slower, to create
complex abstract designs, or to simply fling pigment! |
Goals of the Workshop
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- Get inspired to design and build a machine that can paint
- Observe your machine and see how to re-engineer it to work as
you planned.
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Materials
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- Computers
- Crickets or RCX bricks
- Lots of batteries
- A large cloth or paper dropcloth plus some large sheets of kraft
paper for testing machines
- Tempera paints
- Tape
- Textured materials that hold paint (sponges, textured rollers
for house painting, fun fur, that foamy craft stuff)
- A variety of 1/2"to 3" brushes (small, cheap craft brushes,
metal rubber cement brushes, foam brushes)
- Other materials: cardboard tubes, cardboard, string dowels (get
the size that fits into Lego holes) styrofoam balls plastic or
paper cups, plastic or paper plates (use these to dispense paint
as well as for making art machines) an assortment of colored construction
paper
- Low-temperature hot melt glue
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Set Up
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We have held this workshop for groups of 9-12 year-old kids, and
for younger kids (who came with a parent or other adult). With younger
kids (ages 5-8) we needed more adult helpers. |
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We set up two tables of materials. One table-- the "dry"
table --held all the building and construction materials. The other--the
"wet" table-- held all the paint and water. This table was
close to the tarp and had paper and brushes and space for kids to
load their machines with paint. |
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We taped down a large tarp (or paper painter's dropcloth) for painting.
The tarp was large enough that many kids could try their machines
at once. All the machines together created a huge painting. |
Introduction
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We begin workshop by gathering as a group and talking a little about
the cricket. We demonstrate a couple of the painters, and talk as
a group about what works and what doesn't work as well. |
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Next, we write a simple program the kids a simple program and try
it out with a machine. We start with just a couple of beeps, then
add the motion. It is handy to have a projector so everyone can see
the progam as you work. |
Working & Playing
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After a quick introduction to progamming, it was time to build.
We left samples out and partially built machines around. |
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In one of our workshops, we emphasized the art materials over
the Lego pieces. In that workshop, kids built machines that were
primarily art materials, using only the motors from the kits. They
built pretty quickly and were then ready to program. |
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The kids generally tried out the program once without paint, just
to trouble-shoot, and then went directly to load up with paint and
try it out on the tarp. |
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We didn't worry too much about getting paint on stuff. Tempera paint
is water-soluble and will wash off the floor or Lego pieces. Offer
paint shirts to kids who might worry about getting their clothes dirty.
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Testing often led to rebuilding. The paint doesn't go on the
way you expect, or the machine doesn't move the same way once you
attach pens.
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In this photo the kids are reinforcing their design with tape. Kids
moved back and forth between their computers, the supplies, and the
paint table. |
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Kids had to vary how long the machine ran (they often thought 3
seconds would be a really, really long time), or make it change directions,
or figure out how to build the machine a little differently to work
better. |
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Most of the machines kids made were designed to moved the paint
around the paper. It's also possible to make the paper move. That's
the way this spin art machine works.
Read how to make a spin art
machine. |
Other Thoughts &
Reflections
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With young kids, we needed a lots of helpers, both for getting set
up and for helping the kids once they were working. Parents helped
the kids build, but we needed to talk them through programming, and
they all got to that stage at about the same time. |
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Generally, the parents were really good about helping and let us
work directly with the kids |
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Kids used both the art materials and the Lego bricks and other materials
(wheels, etc.) Generally, it was easier to use the art materials for
both the painter part and the machine, and use as few Lego pieces
as possible. Cardboard and hot melt glue let you assemble something
really quickly. The cups and plates were also good for basic machine
structures. |
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What about take-home stuff? Kids could not take home the machines
they made (except for the non-Lego portions), or the big tarp to which
everyone contributed. Construction paper was available for smaller
drawings, but we didn’t really mention that. On the other hand,
people seemed fine (as far as Margaret could tell), with the art-making
experience, whether or not it resulted in a take-home product |
