Last Sunday we hosted the Squeezable Circuits workshop that we had been preparing for in the Learning Studio at the Exploratorium. Everybody had mixed reaction as to "how it went", so here's my first attempt to summarize and synthesize the day's events. We had decided to focus on taking apart and re-purposing toys, as during the development stage that seemed to be the activity that was the most engaging and "tinkering" of the ones we tried.

I made this diorama as a gift for a friend, using the guts of a battery-operated toy (one of the ones with lots of sounds and lights). When you look in the box and push the button on the side, LEDs flash on and off and illuminate a scene of UFOs and planets. The idea bubbled out of lots of toy taking-apart, and a Michel Gondry movie called Three Dead People. I could pretty much use the toy as it was, but with a few adjustments.