Interactive Science

These were initial thoughts for the Interactive Science direction. Check out the page for the latest deets.

How might we make science more accessible to young makers by reinventing the research paper as an interactive, visual tool for experimentation?

#####FEARS

1. Researchers might not like it. Written medium conveys abstractions that images cannot.
2. Young makers might not like it. They like their Instructables.
3. Difficult to design tools for visualizing research / communicating it clearly.¹
4. Difficult to craft a story with this project that is compelling to mainstream.²
5. Understand how kids perceive science, how they explore the world, what kind of guidance is necessary to allow them to experiment and learn?

#####HOPES

1. It’s a tool I can create for myself
2. Learn more web programming, data over web
3. Learn more graphic design
4. Fun information architecture challenge
5. This perhaps has the greater impact and can be more of a starting point to continue beyond CIID

Feedback

• Disruption of research paper
• What kind of science?
• Talk to teachers.
• This is a research project.
• Make the complex digestible.
• Talk to labs.
• Look at Nature journal
• How can this be used to conduct trials in a scientific way? (Pill bottle)
• You don’t want it to become just another CMS
• How to bring design to scientific research?
• I wish there were more documentation, interactive documentation on open source tools.
• Can CIID use this as a tool in the research group?
• Non-research papers!
• Maybe it’s like an online science lab.
• S. Turkle’s “Simulations & Discontent” - People didn’t like simulations because it didn’t allow them to fail many times.
• Maybe it’s like an interactive how-to guide
• Augments a static how-to,
• Mixes simulation with actually doing it, putting the user at ease.
• Writing is important to construct understanding and perhaps visualization is also a different way of thinking to construct further understanding
• Standards - understand tensions to adopting, how to smooth the transition
• Test ideas quickly
• Create a standard? Explore the breadth of scientific research publications, then perhaps provide a standard or model for one or two.
• Podio - API interactive sandbox
• Help design students get academia
• “When I approach physical computing, I don’t know what to get out of it. I assume the code is super difficult.”
• The end product of this result might be concpetual. You may only be able to show what you want.
• Make it fun while building physical computing (LEGO-style, e.g. mindstorms)
• Approach it by making it relatable, a la materials of electronics course. A circuit board is already confusing.
• Constraints: how easy can you make something?
• Inspiration: VVVV
• Focus on a concept that is hard to understand and teach it: e.g. break points
• A learning tool that’s customizable - like a diary
• Save information on “BUTTONS” in your own style (e.g. always have to look up the buttons example)
• Take it to the extreme. Don’t want just a nice improvement, want to be able to challenge current norms of documentation and teaching. Want to disrupt education. Step it up. Pick it up.
• Focus on designers, or non-“CIID” ppl, aimed at design students to show, “Nothing is Impossible”
• “Don’t worry about execution. Just come up with the ideas and the engineers will take care of it.” - A design teacher to a design student ca. 10 years ago
• live video annotation
• Not easy to skim max msp tutorials, tutorials with help files are kinda hard to switch back and forth between. Want a max patch with chunks of text.
• Raspberry pi with documentation on the device.
• Video and images - presentation tool within the IDE.

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