Creating Creativity in Youth with digital tech

Arts and Crafts for the Digital Age - New York Times

At first blush, the PicoCricket Kit resembles a plastic box of arts and crafts supplies, crammed with colored felt, pipe cleaners, cotton and Styrofoam balls.

Singing to her Pico-Cricket Kit creation allows Hana Machover,12, to influence its behavior.

Mitchel Resnick sought to encourage artistic uses for the robotics kit.

But this is a craft kit for the digital age. It includes electronic sensors, motors, sound boxes, connecting cables and a palm-size, battery-powered, programmable computer.

By combining the traditional materials with high-tech ones, children as young as 9 can invent interactive jewelry, fanciful creatures that dance, musical sculptures and more, said Mitchel Resnick, a professor of learning research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.