Rhode Island artist Kristin Street teaches tinkering

Artist Kristin Street likes to surprise her high school students at Moses Brown School. “I like to change things up,” says the resident of Foster, RI and RISD graduate, “to experiment with new curricular ideas and gauge how the students will respond.” Kristin is fascinated by the “maker” movement. “The maker approach is technological and creative,” she explains, “similar to both scientific research and creating art: asking questions that lead to more questions. Students need to identify and solve problems, flex their creative muscles, communicate effectively and think critically. Fortunately, the maker movement draws on the human inclination to learn by doing.”
She recently introduced a new class, Tinker, Tailor, Maker: “This course focuses on tinkering activities involving the open-source electronics platform Arduino, electricity, magnetism, force and motion. If you want to take things apart and build wondrous, wild art that’s part science and part technology, this is the course for you.”

Last spring, students began with a project that “cannibalized” toys and created new ones with the components. The next project addressed the challenge: “How can we incorporate a safety feature into an accessory or garment, using a variety of technologies and materials?” Students chose everything: the product, whether to work individually or in teams, how time and work should be allocated, and rubrics to evaluate their progress and collaboration. Kristin says: “We saved time for failure, contemplation and reflection, with real evaluative touchstones along the way.” One team built a runner’s safety vest with an active signal to warn approaching drivers. They fine-tuned materials and triggers through several prototypes. Students graded themselves and each other collectively, evaluating teamwork, originality, time management and artistic merit. “I really kept quiet,” Kristin laughs, “and they were brutal in their expectations and assessments!”

And how did the students respond to the new approach? Kristin notes that while her older students were comfortable with the idea of iteration, younger students were frustrated that success didn’t come in the first round. Broadly speaking, she also felt that students with lots of arts experience were more willing to tinker than those who identify more with science and math. “Experimentation has always been an inherent part of working in an arts classroom,” Kristin says. “Trial and error is not a process that is comfortable for many of our students. We try to encourage them to embrace failure as valuable, even a requirement for success.”