11:30 started
11: 35 Flipping Image exhibit. Woman with 3-4 year old child in arms comes
up to it. Asks child "What's this?" Starts to read sign but loses
interest.
11:38
Man with disabled child in soft bricks puzzle. Breaks down bricks and starts
to rebuild. The child is able to get out of the wheelchair and kneel down
among the bricks. (Bambo's
notes | Photos 1-5)
Bambo is very close taking photos. Man is aware but pays no attention.
11:40
Man w/2 children. One in arms. Walks up to Flipping Image and looks puzzled.
Child on foot looks to side. Stay for about 10 secs then move on. 11:42 Rest
of the family then moves to soft bricks. Child to mother "what
do we do?" Mother is non-committal. They rebuild cube. Bambo notes to
me how "constructive the families are." This family, especially
the man are clearly enjoying rebuilding it together. The puzzle is surprisingly
difficult. 11:46 they give up. [Bambo's
notes | Photos]
11:46
Boy 6-7 in baseball cap checks out brick's loose piece
11:46 Another boy looks over but Bambo's presence (camera and tripod) seems to put him off.
11:47 2 girls (5 & 7) destroy partly built
cube and start to rebuild. As they do so, a mother and young child in push
chair. After 2 minutes, losing focus, messing around and talking. Young boy
in push chair gets out and starts to run around a bit. Mother watches but
does not help out with cube. Mother gets child, takes him to the cube and
says "Come
and see the girls then." [Bambo's notes | Photos 1 2 3 ]
11:51 Young boy (ginger hair) by himself tries
to rebuild cube. Mother and brother(?) comes along and watch. [Photos 1 2 3 4]
11:54 Mother starts to help, by seems upset by this at first. He then sulks. They have made a tower. Brother climbs it and then jumps off. Young boy is definitely not happy. He seems to want to do it properly (compare that sequence in body jigsaw?). Mother and brother go away so boy knocks down tower and starts to rebuild. [BS Notes | Photo album 1 2]
11:55 He's getting bored. Another boy turns up and starts to help. Seems to motivate him.
11:56 Rest of the new boy's family turn up and start helping. Ginger boy
leaves. They start building with man leading. They almost give up but woman
tells them to try again. Man asks Bambo about it they get determined and
eventually succeed. [BS notes | Photo
album]
12:03 New family on bricks. Man boy boy. Seem pretty destructive. They are
enjoying tearing it down. Very playful, not really focused on building it.
One boy wants to sit in the middle and have it built around him. They give
up. Man asks Bambo about what she's doing. (BS
Notes | Photo
album)
12:05 Young girl comes over and tries. Goes away and comes back.
12:25 Memo. Using the camera is giving Bambo a mandate for getting closer than if she were taking notes. I wonder if the nature of the camera (SLR, tripod) makes her look more professional and, along with her badge, makes he seem as though she may be TQ staff. Taking contemperanous notes is a problem as usual. It's also going to be interesting to see how easy it is to identify the photos taken by Bambo and link them in here.
12:30 Helper on circulating circuits tells group how to work it by pressing same coloured buttons.
12:35 In It's Electric area now. Seems to be full of people all turning
handles. Mildly surreal. (160)
Woman and two sons, tells one "See if you can make the electric work."
w: "keep going" light comes on
w: "what did you do?" This is the most didactic I've seen a parent
be. Boy is unsure so she explains - fairly accurately.
Go to lightbulbs. She reads while boy is turning and tells him to press buttons. She then explains and then demonstrates later.
As she does this, a passing couple, jokes to her about her ability to turn
on the light when they couldn't. She explains about the button. They try
and then succeed. Man says "Ah! Fuses!"
As man turns, woman jokingly says "go go go!" and then presses
button. [BS notes | Photo album 1 2]
Memo: So far I haven't noticed anyone comment that one light bulb is harder to light than the other - the point of the exhibit.
12:40 Man and daughter. Man turns handle and
daughter presses button then swap round. [Photos 1 2 3 4 5]
Memo: compared to soft bricks, the visitors don't stay very long at these exhibits.
12:47 Young boy tries electricity generator.
Turns handle and presses blue button, keeps turning, repeats, nothing happening.
Not sure what to do. Does not read. Goes faster. Tries green button, tries
other buttons. Goes away. Has not read the text. Later, man comes in. (Photos
1 2)
Go to Scalextric: no one is paying attention to lap counter. No obvious sign of discussion.
On entering IE I hear someone passing say "not much here."
Take lunch break with Bambo.
Scalextric 2:05
Two boys, maybe brothers. Tension between them. Child minder? there as well.
No conversation, just racing the cars. 1 boy leaves, a girl joins in. Boy
keen on doing races and starting at starting line (rules of games). The
generators are quite tricky for kids. Makes me note that I don't recall
seeing them tested on children. [BS notes | Photo album 1 2]
2:10 audience building up around scalextric. Lots of children, no sign of adults. Children are from different groups.
1 adult comes along, seems to be parent of one of the girls. Watching but staying in background. Doesn't stay long
Boy in light blue t-shirt is detemined to be in control and to organise
races. Some of the girls notice the lap counter and start trying it inconclusively.
[Photo]
Things are breaking down with cars going in opposite directions. Organisational
boy is annoyed.
2:14 Two girls using scalextric now. They crash and are about to restart. Organisational boy jumps in and says "It's a race" and then put both back to start.
Race starts and girls get quite excited for a while. The new girl in white is very skilled and keeps the car running for a long time (by not trying to go too fast). Organisational boy says "It's 10 laps." Then other girl shouts "No! You cheated." Some argument over rules. Not a big one.
2:16 no adults still. The players seem to be getting better with the cars staying on for longer. One girl picks up a car and examines the brushes (white shirt with pink sleeves and hat)
2:20
a father comes over and starts to organise a race. He helps his daughter.
They start to count out laps. More adults are starting to watch. [Photos 1 2 3 4]
2:23 "Don't go backwards!" joking, she is turning the handle wrong way.
Memo Scalextric seems to encourage mixing of groups of children in a way that seems fairly unusual here. None of them seem to consider it to be educational (cf the electric exhibits in hub).
2:35 See your own shadow exhibit/ Grand father
and 3 children. All trying to see themselves jumping. Enjoying it immensely.
[BS Notes | Photo 1 2]
Father and daughter and then mother go in. daughter wants to jump and is unsure. A bit of toing and froing as they try to sort it out.
2:40 looking at drawing pendulum. Young girl by herself has climbed on to the exhibit and using it almost like a climbing frame.
2:45 Gravitram Big crowd around it. Adults
tend to point out the progress of the balls to the children and ask them
where they are going to go. Not educational as such but challenging the children
to do some sort of thinking. [BS Notes | Photo
album]
The children themselves seem to like the act of cranking the handle. Quite demanding.
Woman with 6 year old boy on lap "Here it comes! Watch it! Watch it! Look! Quick!"
Note that one person must do it and the rest watching, positioning them as an audience. Can be an active audience in some ways, giving feedback and interest to performer.
Some of them look around to see if they can spot things about to happen before they do. E.g. one of the cradles needs four balls to make it work, one man spots this and points it out, waits for it to work.
2:55 blonde girl on wheel, is clearly looking at the cradle that needs four balls and waiting for it to go off.
The children watching remind me of watching a fish tank. They're quietly interested without being massively excited.
3:00 Father to son. "See this ball is about to start. See if you can follow it the whole way down." Then helps his son follow the ball. Goes towards chimes and then some more balls comes loose. His son then has a go at working it.
Gravitram is a sort of puzzle - can't be solved as such but the mystery
is in guessing where the balls go.