There is a delightfully relentless quality to the way that Tinkering School gets going every year. Sometime in January, we start interviewing parents and kids, paperwork goes out, confirmations come in, and then… suddenly it’s late June and we’re in a frenzy of physical preparations. Supplies are being ordered, broken or lost tools from last year are being fixed or replaced, and the curriculum gets polished. Somehow (thanks largely to the magic of Robyn, and Julie) it all comes together.

This is the last week before full-on frenzy begins. I’ll take a deep breath (in the form of a paragliding adventure in Southern Oregon) and then it’s non-stop through four weeks of July: prep-week, session 1, session 2, cleanup-week. When I describe how this works to people they either say “Wow! That sounds exhausting!” or “Wow! That sounds like *so* much fun, can I sign up?”

We’re working with some exciting materials and going to try and solve some tough problems this year, which should at least give us some spectacular failures (always instructional) and the possibility of wild successes. We’re also going to do the nightly diary entries a little differently so that it’s more compatible with RSS readers (finally!).

Stay tuned, the real fun starts July 13th!

Just a quick note to say that I’ll be speaking and answering questions on Thursday, May 1st at the Maker Day event before the Maker Faire and then again on Saturday, May 3rd, the first day of the Maker Faire. I’ll be doing an expanded version of “Five Dangerous Things” with bonus topic “Make Your Own School”.

Also this year, our Adobe project is a super-cool laser cutter, make-and-take, lantern - stop by to check it out. Get there early to avoid the loooong lines.

Hope to see you all there!

Hi Folks. A lot of you have been wondering if we’d disappeared due to the long response time to questions. We’re sorry for the delays, but with travel and the flu, Robyn and I have been off line longer than we expected. Tinkering School is definitely happening, we’re going to get confirmations out to all the parents (that haven’t already gotten confirmations).

In the meantime, here are some of the important details:

• - We are no longer taking applications for 2008 sessions.
• - Session 1, for ages 7 to 12, starts on Sunday, July 13 and ends on Saturday, July 19.
• - Session 2, for ages 12 to 17, starts on Sunday, July 20 and ends on Saturday, July 26.
• - The one week sessions are $1200 per child.
• - Deposit of $200 is required upon acceptance into the session, remainder to be paid by July 1, 2008.

Thank you for your patience, and stay tuned for more updates as the summer progresses.

The newfangled application form is up and running. It’s a new thing for us, so please leave any comments you have on the process here.

Please follow the link in this message. There you will find details about our upcoming sessions, some answers to your questions, and a form to fill out to confirm your interest in having your child attend Tinkering School this year.

I encourage you to be expansive and detailed in the Personal Statement section of that form. We can’t accommodate everyone, so we look for kids who will really enjoy and make the best of being at Tinkering School. Help us get to know a little about your tinkerer.

Here’s the application form. Sorry folks, we’re not taking any more applications for 2008.

Well, since the TED video has been posted my email has been inundated with sign-up requests. So many in fact that we’ve had to develop a new way of handling the requests. We have almost all the bugs out of the system, and will be posting a link here in the next day or so.

For those of you that have already sent me mail, I apologize for the delay. We haven’t forgotten you - you’ll get an email from us with the sign-up information in it. I expect to have the system operational by Sunday at the latest.

Thanks for your patience,
-gever

Sure enough, here’s the talk. I made a few mistakes, wandered off topic a bit, but I think I get my point across. And Julie would like to point out that only two kids have gone home with injuries serious enough to require a band-aid.

I rarely check email while on vacation, but I just got news from (my new best friend) Emily that my presentation from TED 2007 is getting posted soon! Despite the fact that I haven’t had time this year to finish the book, I couldn’t be more excited.

For the presentation I made some stickers that were pretty well received, print your own from here.

Sunday
Opening day of the second week of Tinkering School (7-12s) proves more challenging than expected. Could it be that Robyn and Gever are still recovering from yesterday? Today’s project is creating chairs from cardboard, a simple idea, but too complicated for a shortened afternoon. Otherwise we are off to a great start: everyone settled in, ate their dinners, read their books, and now the house is quiet with the occasional sounds of slumber. [diary entry]

Monday
With renewed enthusiasm we finish up the chairs we started yesterday, and then spend the afternoon delivering eggs to the remote island nation of Pikinooi via giant slingshot - which turns out to be great fun for all involved. [diary entry]

Bonus videos: “A Good Launch“, “Nice Shot“, “Dinner Table Scene“, “Launch Rebound“, “Mush You Huskies”
Oh, and thanks to all the parents who let me know that the blog was down. It turned out that a critical machine at Dreamhost died yesterday afternoon.

Tuesday
A field trip to the garbage dump, a visit to the Zonkey farm, and an afternoon and after dinner of building boats, cars and airplanes - just another action-packed day at Tinkering School. [diary entry]

Before we begin the bonus videos I feel I must apologize to the parents of the children whom I have accidentally infected with a terrible earworm. You see, I was once in a band, and I wrote quirky lyrics, which gave me kind of a soft spot for quirky song-writers - like Jonathan Coulton who wrote a clever song called “Chiron Beta Prime” that was made into this clever video.

Well, I made the mistake last week of playing the video for the older kids, and Tywen, who is attending both sessions this year, begged me to play it for the younger kids - and then this started happening…

Bonus Videos: The Big Stink wherein our hapless Tinkerers are driven to the smelliest place on earth, Fiona performs a successful Propeller Adhesion Test, and Connor lets loose The Beast

Wednesday
We proudly present the world’s first and finest Caterpillar Cart. Today’s all-day build ends with some initial testing of the carts. We need to work on the linkages, but the Tinker-powered drive seems to be generating some motive force. We look forward to trying it in the parking lot tomorrow. [diary entry]

Bonus Videos: it turns out that getting into the Caterpillar Carts is surprisingly easy, and the view from the back of the train is exciting. Apart made possible, in part, by Sam’s Zen Drilling.

A note on social engineering
Tinkering School has only two, wait, three permanent rules:
#1 - Don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.
#2 - If you see a piece of fruit, and you want it, you must eat it.
#3 - If two or more people want the same thing, it must be resolved by ro-sham-bo.
To that, we add the perennial favorite:
#6 - We don’t talk about it. (Usually invoked at the dinner table when conversations drift into inappropriate topics)
Then over the course of the week, new rules evolve as the need arises. For example, Nikhil felt that we needed:
#14 - Don’t commit suicide unless absolutely necessary.
And when I noticed that people were getting bruised in the mad dashes that result when we announce a change of activity, I added:
#7 - Whoever gets there first goes last.

Thursday
Kind of a late night, so there may be some typos in the diary. We managed to pack quite a few events into the day… [diary entry]

Bonus videos: you know it’s a fun ride when it ends with “ouch!” fixed the link, sorry about that

Friday
We spend all day making rope for the bridge. Not everyone has the stamina for non-stop braiding, so several side projects develop including pine-needle surfing, downhill carting (made possible with the addition of a caster), and a few hard-core funk aficionados who were glued to the radio. [diary entry]

Saturday
Shwew! Gever’s voice barely lasted through lunchtime, but it was long enough for the triumphant success of the rope-bridge. Did we mention it was made from recycled plastic grocery bags? By 8-10 year old kids? Some of whom had never braided before? Plenty of video exists, and we promise you’ll see it. Soon. [diary entry]

bonus videos are being transcoded and loaded as fast as we can manage

As usual, you can look behind the scenes at the raw photos here.

Sunday
Sunday afternoons at Tinkering School fall in the gap between the real world and the big projects we live for. Join us as we explore the hydrodynamic characteristics of the $6 electric toothbrush and contemplate the nature of tomorrows undertaking. [diary entry]

Monday
There are four miles of southwest-running sand around Half Moon Bay, and it’s got Sail-carting written all over it. We’re halfway through the build-out of our most complicated project to date. [diary entry]

Tuesday
What appeared to be a simple matter of “finishing up” the carts, turned into an all-day affair, tying the rollercoaster project of two years ago for lengthiest build. But stay tuned, because tomorrow we ride! [diary entry]
And, because it’s just not late enough at night yet, here is a bonus video for your amusement. Wait, here’s another one.

Wednesday
It was a long day. It was an arduous day. It was a foggy day. But it was not a windy day. It was, however, almost windy, or seemed that it would be. So the sail-cart trials were attempted. Fortunately, there was enough daylight at the end of the day to prepare for tomorrow’s project, codenamed “Swiss”. Special thanks for today’s camera-work to Tywen, and to Julie for the diary help.[diary entry]
Bonus video of the sails: The Solids, The Steeves.

Thursday
The Swiss project, kept under wraps until this moment, finally sees the light of fog. What’s Swiss about it? Swiss Family Robinson! Many engineering, physics and math problems are solved along the way to realizing our very own zero-impact sky palace. Thrill to the trigonometry of calculating how much plywood to purchase! Marvel at the lifting power of leverage! Admire the sophisticated cantilevering! Or just look at the pretty pictures. [diary entry]
Bonus videos of platform assembly and Northern California Tinker Monkeys.

Friday
Despite the mostly present fog (we’re getting used to it by now), it was a busy day under the trees. Phase One of Swiss complete, Phase Two well underway, and Phase Three fully planned and half-prep’d. Of course this is all done at the expense of sleep. Today’s diary is done at least, and bonus videos will come later. [diary entry]
Bonus video of hoisting a Platform Support Module and Platform Truss Module.

Saturday
We built a 30′ tall zero-impact treehouse. What more is there to say? [diary entry]
(There will be bonus video of some key moments. Tomorrow. After some sleep.)

Sunday Supplement
Saturday’s feats of engineering and daring were well-documented, although next time we’ll give Val a few additional lessons in shooting video (such as maintaining the camera orientation). The footage presented us with an opportunity to learn a lot about QuickTime Pro’s capability to crop, rotate, and assemble clips. A glimpse into the day’s activities:
Ambidextrous Awkward Aerial Drilling
Cheese Stix (the making of TorqueStixMini(tm))
The Nest Takes Flight (raising the crow’s nest) FINALLY POSTED
Nest Rail Slide (note gever’s position under the nest)
Nest Tipping (upending the nest into place)
High-wire Power Tools (you can see the jigsaw blade in the side of the nest)
First Ascent

As usual, you can look behind the scenes at the raw photos here.

This is an interesting time for the Tinkering School staff because the curriculum for each session is still fluid and depends in large part on what materials are available. Working out the curriculum each year is an interesting, and still evolving process. One of the things that we learned last year is that the students can tell if you are following a recipe or if we are operating off the map in uncharted territory. And, naturally, it’s the latter that is more engaging and more memorable.

Uncharted territories are tough to plan for, as it turns out. Take for example the row-carts from last year. I got the notion for the carts (I’m not sure where ideas come from, even after all these years of having them) and made a couple of preliminary sketches to get a feel for the kinds of engineering problems we might encounter. We purchased materials against the vague parts-list that I made after pondering my sketches, and then hoped for the best. This is typical for most of our projects - I get ideas, Robyn and Julie help me figure which are good and which are likely cut down our student population, we go shopping or salvaging, and then we… hope for the best.

Last year, with the younger kids, we made cardboard boats. I announced in the morning that we were going to make boats and then paddle them around in the harbor, to which the kids started yelling “We’re going to drown!” That nervous tension kept them focussed during the whole construction phase. There was a lot of “I don’t think that’s going to hold our weight,” and “Let’s make the sides a little higher so that we don’t splash water in when we are paddling.” Those are observations that imply that they are thinking about what they are building. Whereas, during the construction of the guitars - a project based on an article in Make magazine - they had a tendency to do the tasks without any deep consideration of why they were doing it.

Parents often email to ask what projects their children will be doing during the week, and it’s always a little awkward to have to tell them that we don’t share that information. In point of fact, we often don’t know until almost the night before, what project we are going to do on a given day. We always try to structure the projects so that the topics naturally weave together, building on the skills learned earlier, and reinforcing the concepts that we are trying to learn. As a result, if one project goes slightly awry, the project that it was leading to begins to come into question. So we adapt the plan on the fly, sometimes inventing new projects as we go.

Interestingly, this also part of what makes Tinkering School so exciting for us to do. Not knowing if an idea is going to work or not, makes us as much a participant as the students are. We’re all vested in seeing it work out, and that makes us that much more committed to figuring out the solutions to all the unforeseen problems (and believe me, the sketches leave a lot of detail out).