V&A Digital Design Weekend

 

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Last weekend Victoria and Albert Museum had a Digital Design Weekend and I was very lucky to be part of it. There was a huge exhibition showcasing exciting projects, surrounded by crowds of visitors. Meanwhile, I was assisting a MzTEK workshop, where we made soft-circuit robots with participants, or short: softbots. We had two sessions, 3 hours each, with participants of different ages and backgrounds.

The aim of these workshops is always to get people interested in creative electronics, demonstrate how accessible it is and provide an initial motivation to explore this world independently.

 

Some pictures from our pre-production meeting with Emily.

 

Android family?

 

Insert the battery, connect the right switch aand...

  

look into his eyes, kid!

 

 

And an entire s0ftbot family here!

Emily and myself were explaining the basic principles of electrical circuits and showing ways to make robot's eyes light up, and to create various switches. I was a bit nervous in the beginning, but I think it got better over time. To my relief, almost everything worked straightaway, so that all participants were excited about their success. And so was I! And what really surprised me, was how easy it was to share the techniques of soft circuitry and how fast the participants adopted them in their robots. All of them worked so concentrated and so fast! I was very impressed indeed.

 

This guy ended up having four eyes!

       

 Her heart is a switch! If you press it, the circuit is closed and the current can flow!

 

Having a break, fixing my little guy. 

Some conductive stitches were torn after a massive hug attack.

 

A lizard!

 

Emily sharing crochet techniques with Charlotte.

 

A ghost

 

And a cute bird

 

Looking forward to learning and teaching moooore :)