Updates following the Spring 2012 Young Inventor workshop at the Kimball Art Center, Park City, Utah.
The YI concept has generated a lot of interest – the Leonardo in SLC and Science A – Z are two recent groups that have shown interest. Last week I was interviewed by Science A – Z and a video will appear on their website. So have started applying the YI concept to other themes and it works really well – even to creating new types of cake, cookies, and bread – but also to robotics, power generators, etc. So my idea is to take the whole thing further and start a Young Inventor Club – a web and blog site – where I’ll show videos, photos, info re. where to find key components, and set challenges, etc. I also plan to use the new logo, above, when promoting YI and Teen Inventor workshops. Until the new YI website is up and running I’ll use this web and blog site for updates.
The logic behind Young Inventors is to break a theme down into its key component parts and then have the YI’s experiment with every type of variation of combining the key components that they can think of – which is a lot! This type of creativity, and invention, provides a bridge, I think, between science and art. Where the mediums used by the YI’s are new to art but can be just as creatively explored as any other artistic medium. Just as the study of perspective throws math into painting compositions so too can more academic math and science add dimension to the YI type of discovery and creation; but math and science skills develop and are applied naturally according to need. For example, a triangular frame is more stable than a square frame and coupling two batteries together adds more power. This PDF just shows just one type of key component category, “Energy Sources,” – where lots of batteries, solar cells, rubber bands, etc., were supplied, and positioned in one of the “Key Component,” trays, at the workshop.
