4DFrame Workshops

4DFrame Workshops

9-10 January 2015 Workshop at the Swedish Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm, and the Nordic4DFrame office, Vaxholm

Crisp winter weather with newly fallen snow on the ground on 9-10 January found a mixed group of 13 educators, artists, librarians, and entrepreneurs attending the first Nordic4DFrame workshop to be held in our new office on the island of Rindö, which is located in the Stockholm Archipelago.

Friday, the 9th, began first thing in the morning with the participants attending a session at the Swedish Museum of Science and Technology with 4DFrame educators Maria Ekström and Britta Bergholm Isaksson. Held in their 4DFrame workshop, the group got an overview of 4DFrame’s concept, as well as had a hands-on experience working with the different kinds of materials. Anna Nytomt Kristensson, presented an excellent program with 4DFrame, which they developed at Järfälla KomTek, and you can take part of on the Nordic4DFrame web site.This was followed by a showing of the construction- and building-oriented short film, “Bära eller brista / Sink or Swim,” in the Cino4 4D theater. It was this film which lead to the inclusion of 4DFrame in the museum’s activities, such as “Hållfasta konstruktioner / Firm Structures,” with both school and public groups. The museum’s exhibit about the famous Swedish scientist, inventor and industrialist, Christopher Polhem (1661-1751), was the setting for the theme of “Kraft och kraftöverföring / Power and Power transmission” in the form of wind and water wheels.

Friday afternoon found the group enjoying lunch in the seaside town of Vaxholm before taking the local car ferry for the 5-minute long ride over to the island of Rindö, which is where Nordic4DFrame has its office. More hands-on activities were planned for the rest of the afternoon, including a look at how to “reverse engineer” a 4DFrame model from either illustrated directions, or a finished model. After a short break and more activities, the remaining members of the group had a casual dinner at the home of Nordic4DFrame owners, Mariana and Tom.

The long day ended with a short taxi boat ride to Castellet, the historic fort and museum on a small island between Vaxholm and Rindö, where the group spent the night in its cozy Bed & Breakfast. Before it was lights out, however, there was a pleasant time spent relaxing and socializing together. Conversations ranged from what happened during the day, to science education, plus many more topics.

After Saturday’s breakfast, it was back to Rindö by taxi boat for a visit to the historic Rindö Redoubt, and a visit to artist Eva Tuvhav Gullberg’s ateljé. Besides her artistic creations, Eva also works with both children and adults in helping them discover their own creativity, which is one of her interests for working with 4DFrame materials.

One of the two-part activities this day was to break up into groups and first build a “stable structure” from assorted 4DFrame parts in a limited amount of time. After that was completed, the groups had to swap their creations, and were then told to modify them into a “fantasy machine” that could be anything in their imaginations that they wanted it to be. The only requirement was that it had to contain at least one sort of moving part. This was interesting because it made them switch their way of thinking; from making something that was stable from a technical/engineering point of view, to taking a construction that was not of their own creation, and thinking about it in a creative and fanciful way. The final results were a “sensory machine” that collected and concentrated inputs from the five human senses, and a “traveling machine” that could go anywhere that you wanted to—no matter where it was—in one minute.

The last group activity for the day concerned how a three dimensional shape, built with 4DFrame, and a point light source can be used to describe how 3D can be 2D and how shadows and perspectives change with different settings of both models and light.

Following an informal lunch in Eva’s ateljé, it was time for those who were going into Stockholm to make further travel connections to leave, and the workshop was officially over. It may have been one-and-a-half days of activity, but it was certainly an experience that would last a long time in the minds of these users of 4DFrame.

Those who participated during this workshop were (Name / Affiliation / Dates):

Anna Johansson / Stockholms Universitet / 9

Anna Nytomt Kristensson / Järfalla KomTek / 9

Britta Isaksson-Bergholm / Tekniska museet / 9+10

Charlotta Boström / Vaggeryds Bibliotek / 9+10

Eva Tuvhav Gullberg / Konstnärsföreningen i Vaxholm / 9+10

Fanny Söderström Aupeux / Tekniska museet / 9

Maria Ekström / Tekniska museet / 9

Maria Karlsson / MKA / 9+10

Mariana Back / Nordic4DFrame, Tekniska museet / 9+10

Pernilla Eckerbom / Vaxholms Bibliotek / 9

Rachel Odigie / 4DFrameUK / 9+10