Blogs

Electronic Soundscapes was the second event in the Institute of Play and art and technology center Eyebeam's Super Art + Design Challenge Wednesday collaboration. Featuring sound designer Hans-Christoph Steiner and 20 Quest to Learn sixth-graders, the three-hour workshop probed the conceptual, technical and sonic dimensions of computer-generated sound and noise. Beginning with the simple question, "What is sound?," Hans showed students his own projects and introduced them to pure data—a real-time graphical programming environment that can be used to create computer music. Hans guided students through the sound creation process, masterfully creating a simple, inviting and fun point of entry into a complex and intimidating environment. Hans challenged students to create and control electronic sounds using their computer mouse by the end of the day. As students sampled their voices and filled the room with their own noisy soundscapes, it was clear that yet another design challenge had been successfully met.

This week, the Institute of Play launched a new collaboration with Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, called Super Art + Design Challenge Wednesdays. Presented at Quest to Learn, the program brings Eyebeam fellows and residents together with Q2L students to explore new ideas, techniques and technologies. This week's workshop, YouTube ReMix Mania, featured Eyebeam senior fellow Jeff Crouse, who showed students some of his own projects and introduced some big ideas about contagious media, robotic monkeys, participatory culture and parody. After a quick tour of iMovie and a review of effective editing techniques, Jeff challenged the group to make their own re-creations using their brand new skills and tools. At the end of the afternoon, when the students uploaded their remixes and shared them online, it was clear that they had aced the first design challenge with only seconds to spare!

As founding partner of the new NYC public school Quest to Learn, one of the Institute of Play's projects has been developing and implementing Q2L's afterschool enrichment program, Mobo Studio. Presented in partnership with the Pearson Foundation and the Mobile Learning Institute and held at Quest to Learn, Mobo Studio has a focus on digital citizenship, mobile creativity and design. Supported by a talented team of artists-experts, Mobo extends Q2L's focus on tinkering, problem-solving, creating, and inventing.

On Friday November 13, the budding fashion technologists in Mobile Fashion presented their work in a well-coordinated, tightly-choreographed fashion show. Tasked with creating a line of accessories that function as a coded messaging system, the stalwart group of six began by examining their own closets and de-coding their own personal styles. Inspired by everyone from Chanel to Pucci and guided by their mentors Pollie Barden and Jennifer Boyle, the group researched fashion history, mastered sewing machines and pattern-making and prototyped a range of design ideas. The group also analyzed the nature of code and used smartphones to investigate braille, morse code and semacode as unique systems. As a result of these investigations, the group produced the "txt scarf," a scarf that carries a phone and enables texting and the "semacode purse," a purse that both holds the phone and displays semacodes that reveal secret messages. The accessories were a big hit, bravo to our young inventors!

Produced by the Mobile Learning Institute and featuring the hard-working Mobile Quest campers, this video was completed during the preparation of the Mobile Quest games festival. Mobile Quest was a week-long game design camp where 5th graders made games using N85 smartphones. Focusing on the phones' GPS, bluetooth and code-reading capabilities, the Mobile Questers worked with game designers and mobile application developers to learn about game design, smartphones and data literacy.

To find out more about Mobile Quest, check out the Mobile Quest blog for photos, videos and the downloadable Mobile Quest Curriculum Kit PDF.