Twisted Toys: Monster Truck
On June 5th, the Studio hosted another Twisted Toys event, focused on taking apart toys. We invited visitors to bring their own toys to de- and reconstruct, and also provided materials we had gathered from different mechanical and stuffed toys. We set up a time-lapse camera, as we often do, and aimed it at one of the stations where people could dissect toys. An awesome brother-sister duo arrived at this station with their toys just as we were opening in the morning, and spent several hours engaged here discovering and recreating their toys. I helped facilitate this event and spent a significant amount of time talking with the kids and helping them do what they were imagining. You can check out this video of them working below, and read my narrative underneath if you’d like some narration.
Logan and Uma arrived at the studio with a toy monster truck and a kitten, respectively. The monster truck was wired so that headlights and taillights lit up, and the kitten had a voice box and mechanism inside so that it wiggled its front paws and made a precious mewing sound when you pressed its back. The both jumped right into taking apart their toys. Uma started skinning her kitten, and soon wandered over to the materials table where a frying pan in a stuffed chef’s frying pan and a stuffed chick inspired her to remake her kitten so that it was cooking a delicious bird meal. Logan, meanwhile, was very focused on using our tools to open up his truck. The screwdriver proved quite useful, as did the saw and scissors. In the video, you’ll notice that I was often holding the truck so that he could cut it, or we would switch. The truck wasn’t the right shape for the vice, so it was tricky to cut and definitely needed two sets of hands to get the job done.
As we were cutting, we cut through one of the wires that connected the battery to the headlights. I told Logan we could solder it back together, so it wasn’t a big deal, but he said he wasn’t concerned about the lights working at the time. Later, however, he asked about it and I realized he had never soldered before and didn’t realize what it entailed and that it didn’t have to take a long time to fix. When we disappear in the video for a while, it’s because he’s over at the soldering station. Notice when he comes back on camera, he turns on the headlights for awhile. Another Explainer, Sal, was over at the soldering table, and the 3 of us had a really good experience there not only sharing soldering knowledge, but also learning about circuits. We had to try configuring the wires in several different orientations before we got both of the lights to light up, because they were wired in a parallel circuit.
Logan then continued to dismantle his car and found more interesting parts to explore, such as motors, inside. After over 3 hours, when he finally wasn’t sure what else to do, his sister came over and helped inspire him to use some of the stuffed animal fur to make his truck truly a monster truck!
- Exploratorium.edu
