Fantasmagorical Machines

Yesterday I drove all the way to Oxford for the first Lola day school.  I managed to see a little more of Oxford than I was expecting but the day went really well.  Just a shame that there were only 2 people from my tutor group in attendance – 3 tutors and their groups made up the session so we had the chance to work on three very different sides of design – photography, problem solving and my favourite; the making of Fantasmagorical Machines.

We were given a choice of machine to make, things like a machine to make a mountain out of a mole hill, or a machine for weighing up your options or, in my groups case, a machine to help you find cloud cuckoo land.  Of course with only an hour to work on it no one was expecting a fully working machine, but I was impressed with all the prototypes that were produced.

We ended up creating a compass which would take your thumb print and then calibrate to find your very own version of cloud cuckoo land.  We added a light to help with navigation and a button on the lid which would fold everything away when we were finished with it so it would travel in a pocket or bag.  If I’d been working on my own it probably would have been a little more minimalist, but these are all part of the challenges of design.

I can’t wait to see what they get us doing at the next day school.