Posted by The first line of Eric’s biography says it all – it reads: “I design for creative play”. This could not be more true just look at the array of creative educational projects he was and is involved with.
Foremost, there is Scratch – a block-based visual programming language and online community targeted primarily at children. We have mentioned Scratch many times and finally we’re talking with Eric, wo is currently working with the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab.
Another great educational toy that Eric was involved with is Makey Makey. It’s is an electronic invention tool and toy that allows users to connect everyday objects to computer programs. Using a circuit board, alligator clips, and a USB cable, the toy uses closed loop electrical signals to send the computer either a keyboard stroke or mouse click signal. This simply means, that you can hook up a banana to your computer – whenever you touch it, it sends a keystroke – and you can for example control a fun game with it. Crazy? Yep, but a great way to start learning about electricity, computers and electronics.
Images showing the use of Makey Makey during workshops at MIT.
Images by Eric Rosenbaum, CC-BY 2.0 – way more here…
Eric has also been involved in electronics projects such as Drawdio – the name combines drawing with audio and if you solder and build it with your kids, you can have fun and learn about electronics in combination with sound at the same time. Or there is singing fingers, which is an iPad app that allows you to experiment with sound.
We could continue listing projects for quite some time – so if you’re interested please check out the shownote links below.
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