Build a paper circuit

In MILL, Mishael showed us a paper circuit composed by a battery and an LED and demonstrated its working principle by drawing on the glass wall of the lab. It was pointed out that the LED had two legs (because it is a diode), one longer than the other, and the longer one (anode)  should be attached to the “+” side of the battery and the shorter one (cathode) to the “-” side of it. At first, I tried without the copper tape and all the LEDs worked all right. However, when I tried to link two LEDs with the copper paper, it failed. I figured that it was probably because I mixed the two electrodes of the LED, and as a result, the wrong leg was attached to the battery. I found that even though there was a visible difference in length between the two legs of a LED, it was practically unintelligible when the two legs were flattened out horizontally. In order to set the anode apart from the cathode, I marked the anodes with a marker. After a clear identification of the two ends, I created a successful parallel circuit with a battery and two LEDs.

With the technical problems settled, greeting card making became easy. I found a beautiful piece of origami paper with flower patterns on it. So I came up with an idea of making illuminating flowers by piercing the center of the blossoms with the LEDs. All I need to do was to locate the positions on another piece of paper at which the LEDs could be placed in such a way that matches the positions of the blossoms on the origami paper. Here is my circuits.

And the following is the “illuminating flower greeting card.” A little problem I had after the circuits are covered with the origami paper was that one or another LED would fail to function now and then and I had to push them hard for it to light. Otherwise, it could be a “perfect” design with intended outcome.

After this was done, I tinkered a little bit with the LEDs. This time, I lifted the copper tape from paper and created a “portable” circuit, with which I lighted a “castle”. Doesn’t the castle assume a mythical atmosphere when it is lighted by the blue lights?

After this small circuit creating project, the memory of my middle school years flushed back. How much more meaningful and impactful would it have been if I had had the chance to create a project like this when I was a 8^th grader! By designing an illuminating greeting card, I would get the chance to play with the basic knowledge about electricity: the flow of the electrons, the conductibility of the metal (copper tape), the function of the battery, etc. During the process, I troubleshooted problems by appealing to my prior knowledge, so this is not the play as conceptualized by the “edutainmentists” as an opposition to learning and education (Resnick, 2007, p.3) because I am playing with the knowledge itself and I don’t “suffer” through nor endure the “bitter medicine” of education. I relished the whole process: imagining a greeting card, creating a system of circuits, playing with the knowledge while I am tinkering with the lights, paper, battery, copper tapes, and a “castle”, sharing my project on the blog with classmates, and writing a reflection now.

But unfortunately, back in the 1980’s in China (or even now), our education system was dominated by the behaviorist perspective of knowledge and learning (Case,1996), in which knowledge was perceived as discrete and stable and can be transmitted from the teacher to the students. Therefore, the best way for this transmission was through direct instruction, followed by drills or practices reinforced by reward or punishment. In addition, assessment in this model which featured observable behavior unavoidably orients both teaching and learning to the memorization of facts and analogous problem solving. Students were generally treated as passive recipients. It is still common to hear parents and educators in China say that children are like blank paper that can yield whatever result the educators write. This agrees with what Resnick reasons that there is “a lack of appreciation for the importance of helping young people develop as creative thinkers (Resnick, 2007, p.2)”. 

Another aspect of the failure in applying the “kindergarten style” of learning that resonates especially with me is that educators and/or designers sometimes ignore the appropriateness or age-specificity of teaching materials. It may be helpful to keep in mind Froebel’s essential ideals behind the Gifts: designing for designers. For example, the copper tape and LEDs encouraged me (pretending to be an 8^th grader) to create rather than constrained me into following the preprogramed path of an anonymous designer, as most electronic toys in the market do. 

References:

Case, R. (1996). Changing views of knowledge and their impact on educational research and practice. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The hand book of education and human development: New models of learning, teaching and schooling (pp. 75–99). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Resnick, M. 2007. All I really need to know (about creative thinking) I learned (by studying how children learn) in kindergarten. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI conference on Creativity & cognition (C&C '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1-6.