We present a set of case studies in which students create, customize, and personalize their own scientific instruments -and thus become engaged in scientific inquiry not only through observing and measuring but also through designing and building. While computational technologies have, in general, contributed to making today's scientific instruments more "opaque" (that is, less understandable) and less aesthetically-pleasing than their predecessors, we argue that these same technologies can be used to bring back a sense of transparency and aesthetics to the design of scientific instruments. We analyze how students, by building their own scientific instruments, can: pursue a broader range of scientific investigations of their own choosing, feel a stronger sense of personal investment in their scientific investigations, and develop deeper critical capacities in evaluating scientific measurements and knowledge.

No abstract

No abstract

An astonishing array of new technologies is currently effecting a revolution in the professional design of textile artifacts. This integration of electronics and computation into textiles likewise suggests new directions in the practice of children's crafts. In this paper, we present a classification scheme that we believe will prove useful in structuring exploration and discussion of new directions in children's textile-based crafts. Within the context of this classification scheme, we describe several projects in our lab (along with early pilot-testing efforts) that offer examples of how children can work with computationally enriched textiles. We conclude by describing several extremely exciting-but nonetheless plausible-scenarios for continued work in this area.