Designing Interactive Toys October 19, 2008

Designing Interactive Toys
Go geeky: Build, hack, experiment, play and go wild!

Design Interactive Toys is led by a star team that includes Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of Tinker (the company that helped with designing and manufacturing the Arduino), part-time toy hacker Danja Vasiliev and physical computeer Dirk van Oosterbosch. Participants will intensely play with toys - using their hands, their concepts, and our soldering kits, sensors and experience.

Workshop approach
Participants learn about creative play and physical computing. They
design new and exciting toys, and combine physical and digital qualities to make it happen.
In the mornings, lectures and lessons bring in new perspectives, and interesting project presentations. 
Every afternoon the participants work on their own workshop projects. In four workshop days every participant will develop a prototype of a hybrid world media project, assisted by outstanding international trainers, lecturers and technical assistants. The workshop closes with a public presentation in which the issues are discussed and the results are shown.

Trainers
Alexandra Deschamps - Sonsino from Tinker.it is present as one of the trainers and lecturers. We are very pleased with her presence. Next to Alexandra we also have the outstanding technical qualities of Dirk van Oosterbosch and Danja Vasiliev to support the workshop. Their knowledge and experience are also very much needed during this workshop.

Workshop tools
As practical research tools the participants can use a variety of Arduino's (Diecimila, Bluetooth and Lilypad) with a collection of sensors and other (conductive) materials to play and experiment with.
Please bring your own toys to play, experiment and hack with.

Participants
The workshop is designed for a maximum of 16 media makers, artists, designers and producers.
All participants are assisted personally in realizing their workshop projects. Participants are not required to have specific technical knowledge of physical computing and new media, but affinity is important and recommended.

Final results presented at the Cinekid Festival
The results of the workshop will be presented during the Cinekid Festival.

Price
The price for this workshop is:
€ 250 excl. VAT
The price includes technical support and the use of equipment.

Registration
You can register online.
If you have questions or need more information please contact Deborah Meibergen at deborah [at] mediamatic.net or by phone +31 (0) 20 - 638 9901

Where? When?
Amsterdam, Mediamatic Bank, Vijzelstraat 68, Amsterdam (in the city centre)
20th until 23rd of October 2008. We start daily at 9:30 a.m. and end around 5 p.m.

Previous Hybrid Toys report & Pingmag review
In January 2008 we held a very successful Hybrid Toys workshop. If you want to read more on what you can expect, read the Hybrid Toys workshop report.
The Tokyo-based online magazine Pingmag published an article about our first Hybrid Toy workshop and an interview with Jean-Baptiste LaBrune and Dana Gordon. Read all about it here: http://www.mediamatic.net/page/28804/en

Official Website: http://www.mediamatic.net/hybridtoys