Pop Up Thinglab 24: MAKE:VR Curiosity, Children and Science

Pop Up Thinglab 24 was a children's virtual reality workshop and travel agency in Fullwell Cross Library. It was an opportunity for children to learn about and experience virtual reality with a hands on heads on introduction covering both theory and practice and an opportunity to see themselves in virtual reality and make and take away their own virtual reality viewers.

The workshop started "heads on" where we covered the development of virtual reality, a simple technical explanation of how it works and the current state of virtual reality with a description of products, platforms, prices and capabilities. The second part of the workshop was "hands on" where we made Google Cardboard virtual reality viewers and used them to take virtual reality trips.  We finished our hands on session by putting ourselves in the picture by taking and viewing virtual reality selfies - something that is great fun and really helps people understand virtual reality through the direct experience of making it.

During the "heads on" theory part of the workshop we talked about technology, science and explanations. We started with NASA's explanation of virtual reality 

"Virtual reality is the use of computer technology to create the effect of an interactive three-dimensional world in which the objects have a sense of spatial presence."

No one really understands the NASA explanation and contrasted it with a child's explanation from Pop Up Thinglab 14

"Virtual reality projects into your eyes as if you are there”  

Which everyone seems to understand.

We talked about how much harder it is to make an easy explanation of something and I quoted Albert Einstein who once said ...

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”

Its amazing that even six year olds have heard of Albert Einstein and that he was a scientist.

Children are natural scientists - curiosity bootstraps their learning through play, exploration and experimentation. Children learn how to walk and talk before they can read an instruction manual - babies learn to walk through curiosity and trial and error exploration and experimentation.

Einstein knew all about the power of curiosity, play and experimentation.

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious”

and

“Play is the highest form of research” 

The marine biologist and explorer Sylvia Earle once said "The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder. They have curiosity."

One of the child scientists at Pop Up Thinglab 24 

Children Play Like Scientists Work - they try things out, experiment, test things, break things and inquire - just as if they are doing scientific research. Failure is not an option .... literally ... "that didn't work ... lets try this instead" its not thought about in the adult way - its just something that happens - its all part of the fun - its an essential ingredient of play and learning.
A Curious Mind Knows No Limits - to learn just start playing  .. its only natural - we just have to create the conditions.

It was interesting to see the children think about and identify their senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell and we had an interesting conversation about how virtual reality gets more real when you add more senses and get more "immersed". We talked about Morton Heilig's Sensorama "Experience Theatre" of the 1960s which added smell, wind and motion to your virtual reality experience. I mentioned the newly announced Koei Tecmo Wave VR Sense "Arcade cabinet that brings wind, smell and bugs to VR" to make your experience of VR even more realistic.

I spoke about my experiences with virtual reality in the 1990s with Virtuality's arcade games - how amazing they seemed at the time but like most things in the history of virtual reality - ahead of its time and the ability of the technology to deliver. We talked about hype, expectation and the ability of technology and although it was a children's session I showed them the Gartner Hype Cycle and even children could understand this.

We spoke about current technology trends and had a conversation about robots and artificial intelligence. It's amazing that children know about artificial intelligence and even more fascinating to hear them talk about it - about Google's Deepmind and how it learned to beat the world's best Go players for example. The children had several goes at explaining artificial intelligence but the best one I think was:

"Artificial intelligence is about machines that think"

We spoke about how the current rise in virtual reality was kickstarted (literally) in 2012 by a teenager with fresh ideas messing around with mobile phone displays, electronics and software in his garage - many of the children of course knew who and what I was talking about ..... Palmer Lucky and Oculus Rift. I spoke about the Google science fair for 13- to 18-year-old students and about how so many amazing ideas come from the new perspectives of young people or as Walt Disney put it “Our greatest national resource is the minds of our children”

However, "downsizing" virtual reality didn't stop with Palmer Lucky and Oculus Rift ... we went on to talk about how two engineers at Google came up with the idea to use mobile phones with virtual reality viewers made out of cardboard - bringing the cost of accessing virtual reality to almost nothing!

Making Cardboard virtual reality viewers

The story of Google Cardboard led into our hands on practical session where the children made their own virtual reality viewers from cardboard VR kits and used their phones to watch our curated content on Youtube - roller coaster rides are always popular with adults and children but this group of child scientists also enjoyed Space Experience  a Journey To The Edge Of Space and a trip to Mars for a view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover at Namib Dune (360 view)

Making your own is a great way to appreciate and understand something and making our own virtual reality viewers helped make the experience of virtual reality personal. However, we didn't stop at just viewing virtual reality ... we put ourselves into virtual reality ..... using a 360 camera to record ourselves and then view ourselves in virtual reality.

With a 360 camera everything is in shot ....all around, above and below ... there is no hiding! While adults can take sometime to adjust to this children seem to just take it in their stride having fun striking poses all around the camera. The process of making 360 degree imagery really helps people understand virtual reality and then seeing yourself in a virtual reality selfie is always fascinating and the personal experience really brings it home what virtual reality is better than any explanation.

For more images of Pop Up Thinglab 23 visit: Pop Up Thinglab 24 (Flickr album)

To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com

To find out more about virtual reality visit http://inspireNshare.com/vr

Pop Up Thinglab 23: MAKE:VR Children and Stories

Flat image from one of our 360 VR "selfies"

Pop Up Thinglab 23 was a children's virtual reality workshop and travel agency in Wanstead library. It was an opportunity for children to learn about and experience virtual reality with a hands on heads on introduction covering both theory and practice and an opportunity to see themselves in virtual reality and make and take away their own virtual reality viewers.

The workshop started "heads on" where we covered the development of virtual reality, a simple technical explanation of how it works and the current state of virtual reality with a description of products, platforms, prices and capabilities. The second part of the workshop was "hands on" where we made Google Cardboard virtual reality viewers and used them to take virtual reality trips.  We finished our hands on session by putting ourselves in the picture by taking and viewing virtual reality selfies - something that is great fun and really helps people understand virtual reality through the direct experience of making it.

Awareness of virtual reality has increased remarkably over the last year ... its not surprising given the amount of news and hype it has received even in the mainstream media let alone the technical media. Nearly all the children in workshop had heard about virtual reality before and more than half of them had already tried it while only a few of their parents had given it a go. None of the children had tried virtual reality at school, a few of them had tried it at home but most of them had tried it in shopping centres at public events like these -  "Samsung VR pop-up at Westfield attracts 125,000 visitors", "Westfield Shopping Centre Holding Tech Event Featuring VR" and Intu trials VR Christmas shopping experience - "where shoppers can step from a winter log cabin in the shopping centre to a virtual reality winter wonderland"

Mobile access to virtual capability has improved considerably over the last year - in this workshop almost all the children had a smartphone with them and almost all of the smartphones were capable of working with Cardboard virtual reality - having a Gyro and using Android 4.1+ or iOS 8.0+. 

I'm always amazed at the capability of children when given a chance. Making Google cardboard virtual reality viewers from a kit is tricky at first even for adults but all of our children managed to make and use a viewer - most needed a little help but some made them all on their own.

During the "heads on" theory part of the workshop we talked about Robert Barker's Rotunda of 1789 - one of the earliest examples of "immersive virtual reality" type experiences and comments that it "lulled viewers into lethargy, inhibiting their ability to imagine things for themselves". We were in a library and this started a fascinating conversation about reading, virtual reality and imagination. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words but it can also be said that a word is worth a thousand pictures as the best pictures are in your head. We spoke about how when reading a book we have to use our imaginations to see a scene but when using virtual reality there is nothing left to the imagination - a scene is shown to us and we can experience it as if it were real and look around as if we are there.

We spoke about the difference between standard "flat" media and virtual reality. With standard "flat media" photos and videos someone else (the director or cameraman) directs our attention and we see only what they want to us to see at any one time in a sort of "voyeuristic" second or third person perspective. With virtual reality photos and videos we can look around as if we are there and chose for ourselves which way we want to look and what we want to look at in an immersive first person perspective like real life.

While good writing can help us use our imaginations I can't imagine anyone saying they would sooner read about a holiday than go on holiday. However, I can imagine that many would sooner read about a dangerous experience than have a dangerous experience. Virtual reality offers a fascinating "half-way" house" where we can almost "have our cake and eat it" - we can get closer to experiencing things we wouldn't otherwise be able to - to go on fantastic voyages from the convenience and safety of a local library for example.

We all like stories and we are all natural storytellers - ask any child. The best stories are personal experiences which connect with us in some way and with its first person perspective virtual reality puts us into a story in a personal way - just listen to the five year old in the clip below describe his experience of being in a story at Pop Up Thinglab 23

For more images of Pop Up Thinglab 23 visit: Pop Up Thinglab 23 (Flickr album)

To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com

To find out more about virtual reality visit http://inspireNshare.com/vr

Mindstorms Thinglab

Mindstorms Thinglab Is a constructionist learning lab developed on the principles of inspireNshare Thinglab and inspired by the visionary ideas of Seymour Papert in Mindstorms, Constructionism and his Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Lab

InspireNshare Thinglab
Inspired by Maker culture, the "The Web We Lost", "Web Squared", constructionism and Connectivism inspireNshare Thinglabs explore new approaches with education and technology - emphasising open, social, informal, "freestyle" and experimental methods ...... "where web meets world" we surf and learn.

InspireNshare Thinglabs are not just about ideas - that would be "Thinklab". InspireNshare Thinglabs are about ideas and experiences .... doing things .... Heads On Hands On (HOHO) to enjoy and have some fun :)

InspireNshare Thinglabs are not just about digital - that would be "Digilab". While digital technology is important, InspireNshare Thinglabs are about 'things" .... artefacts, paper, hand-tools, analogue, art, craft ... even magic .... as well as digital.

Mindstorms

Seymour Papert’s research convinced him that children learned more efficiently if they could see a tangible result and that  "kids (and adults, for that matter) are motivated and inspired to learn when they are using that learning to make something they care about, that a teacher’s most important role is to provide them with the tools and freedom to make those things, and that the computer is an especially powerful tool when kids get to use it for creation."

Mindstorms has two central themes: that children can learn to use computers in a masterful way and that learning to use computers can change the way they learn everything else ... even outside the classroom. 

Papert’s Mindstorms, is both a manifesto and a blueprint for EdTech. Few books explain so lucidly the transformative potential of computers in promoting student-centred learning. Fewer still provide practical steps for realising this potential. His research in the 1970s convinced him that children learned more efficiently if they could see a tangible result and for educational computing he developed the turtle - an "object to think with" - a robot that could be programmed by Logo commands to move around with a pen and draw shapes.

“In the LOGO environment … the child, even at preschool ages, is in control: The child programs the computer” 

In Mindstorms Papert writes about his ideas that computers have the potential to change not only the way we educate, but also what we are able to teach to children. Papert considered programming the turtle a tangible example of George Polya's heuristics and principles of problem solving in action - understanding the problem, making a plan, carrying out the plan and reflecting.

"The child programs the computer. And in teaching the computer how to think, children embark on an exploration about how they themselves think."

Constructionism

Papert developed his ideas in the learning theory of Constructionism which advocates student-centered, discovery learning where students use information they already know to acquire more knowledge. Students learn through participation in project-based learning where they make connections between different ideas and areas of knowledge facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than using lectures or step-by-step guidance. Further, constructionism holds that learning can happen most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects in the real world.

Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Lab
Seymour Papert wrote "Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Lab" for internal use in a research project - it was published in Gary Stager's doctoral thesis "An Investigation of Constructionism in the Maine Youth Center" in 2007.

1. Learning by doing. 
We all learn better when learning is part of doing something we find really interesting. We learn best of all when we use what we learn to make something we really want.

2. Technology as building material.
If you can use technology to make things you can make a lot more interesting things. And you can learn a lot more by making them. This is especially true of digital technology: computers of all sorts including the computer-controlled Lego in our Lab.

3. Hard fun. 
We learn best and we work best if we enjoy what we are doing. But fun and enjoying doesn’t mean “easy.” The best fun is hard fun. Our sports heroes work very hard at getting better at their sports. 

4. Learning to learn. 
Many students get the idea that “the only way to learn is by being taught.” This is what makes them fail in school and in life. Nobody can teach you everything you need to know. You have to take charge of your own learning.

5. Taking time – the proper time for the job.
Many students at school get used to being told every five minutes or every hour: do this, then do that, now do the next thing. If someone isn’t telling them what to do they get bored. Life is not like that. To do anything important you have to learn to manage time for yourself. This is the hardest lesson for many of our students.

6. You can’t get it right without getting it wrong.
Nothing important works the first time. The only way to get it right is to look carefully at what happened when it went wrong. To succeed you need the freedom to goof on the way.

7. Do unto ourselves what we do unto our students.
We are learning all the time. We have a lot of experience of other similar projects but each one is different. We do not have a pre-conceived idea of exactly how this will work out. We enjoy what we are doing but we expect it to be hard. We expect to take the time we need to get this right. Every difficulty we run into is an opportunity to learn. The best lesson we can give our students is to let them see us struggle to learn.

8. Digital world 
We are entering a digital world where knowing about digital technology is as important as reading and writing. So learning about computers is essential for our students’ futures BUT the most important purpose is using them NOW to learn about everything else.

Mindstorms Thinglab and programming to learn
Programming is often misunderstood as a purely intellectual and academic type of activity but it's really quite practical, its about making and building things and learning the real value of programming is that it helps people develop a useful life-wide and life-lifelong way of thinking and set of practical transferable skills.

Mindstorms Thinglab is not just about learning to program - its about programming to learn.
Programming to learn is about: 

* Looking for the essence of things to make them simpler and improve understanding. 

*Approaching big problems in a scientific way and breaking them down into smaller more manageable bits to help us organise, plan and get on and do things. 

* Recognising the importance of understanding things ourselves and being aware of the other person to help us communicate better. 

* Adapting and continuously improving to help us keep learning through our lives.

Mindstorms Thinglab and Tangible Programming
Seymour Papert saw computers and technology as "objects to think with rather than dispensers of information" and that "It’s not what you know about the computer that’s important, but your ability to do things with it."

Mindstorms Thinglab uses technology as "objects to think with". We are developing tangible programming projects as a way to learn not just about programming but about learning.

The nature of computing is changing - we are at the very start of the information revolution proper and what could be new era of computing. Communication interfaces with computers and machines are likely to change with developments in artificial intelligence deep learning will radically change the ways we interact with technology and soon we won’t program computers ... we’ll train them like dogs - this is one reason we are so interested in developing fully physical or tangible computing and computer interfaces, not just as an effective way of introducing programming today but as a way of preparing for the future.

Lego named its programmable technical construction kit "Mindstorms" in honour of Seymour Papert and his ideas in "Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas" and it is with Lego Mindstorms that we have developed our first tangible programming projects Pavlov and Nemo. Each project has three "modes" or phases

* Play and discovery 
Play with the object to get to know about it - find out what it responds to and how it reacts. 

* Training (programming or learning)
Start thinking with and about the object to program it to do things and solve problems.

* Performance (program execution)
Watch the object carry out your program and think about how you might fix anything that went wrong, improved on what you did or what else you might be able to do.

Pavlov and Nemo are just a toe tip in the water of tangible computing - we will be developing many more activities and projects with the "Cambrian explosion" of technology emerging today including nano computing, virtual reality, augmented reality, IoT, robotics, 3D printing and wearable tech to name just a few and in the near future are looking forward to adding AI In The Making.

There has never been a more exciting time with technology.

There has never been a more exciting time to learn.

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Thank you to
CCS Libraries for support with Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits

To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com