Spin Turntable needs a temporary home in Europe!

[Tiffany Tseng]

Hi, everyone.

My name is Tiffany, and I'm a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab.  I've been building tools for Makers to document and share their design process, including Build in Progress and Spin.  

I currently have a Spin turntable that needs a home in Europe from 9/7 - 10/5. I am looking for educators working in a Makerspace / Fablab to take care of it and use it with kids before it is off to Belgium and the Netherlands starting in October!

For some background about the project, Spin is a photograph turntable that helps people create GIFs of their design projects.  These GIFs can be shared directly on Facebook or Twitter or downloaded as a video or GIF to share on Instagram, Vine, or other social media platforms.  I'm interested in seeing how these animations might motivate documentation practices and encourage reflection on design process.

The only requirement for using the Spin turntable is an iOS device.

If you know of any candidates for taking care of the turntable, please email me at ttseng (at) mit (dot) edu.

Thanks!

Here are some examples of Spins created by different Makerspaces and Schools:

  

Left: Infinite Mirror created at De Populier in the Netherlands [http://spin.media.mit.edu/projects/131]; Right: Racecar created at the Piscataway Library Makerspace in New Jersey [http://spin.media.mit.edu/projects/378]

[Dylan Ryder]

Hi Tiffany,

I think your Spin turntable is awesome and it inspired me to investigate the possibility of tasking my 4th or 5th graders to build their own tribute device with materials that they have already mastered. Before I present them with the challenge, I made a proof of concept prototype with LEGO WeDo kit and a free iOS GIF making app. It's less elegant than your design since the turntable and the camera are not in communication, nor synched, but the end result of having animated GIFs of projects "in-process" is so exciting that I think the kids will jump at it!

Thanks for the idea and keep up the inspiring work!

Dylan Ryder

The School at Columbia University

[Tiffany Tseng]

Sorry, I only just saw your response–I love this!  It's really neat that it uses LEGO and seems to work great with small models.  And I think the continuous video examples you shared are very compelling.  

I'm curious what your students have thought about using it so far!

[Dylan Ryder]

Hi Tiffany,

The students haven't seen the Spin just yet. I made that test proof model right before our Winter break so the timing wasn't right. Our 4th grade Technology and Science classes are combining for a robotics design unit next week, so I'll pose them with a challenge of reverse engineering your turntable design with LEGOs then. I'll share more updates soon!

[Tiffany Tseng]

Sounds great – looking forward to hearing how it goes!