Capi’s Adventure is a workshop kit designed for children’s groups to build a timer (pomodori timer), with the goal of learning how to solder and getting a small introduction to the world of electronics. Additionally, it has been designed in the form of a graphic novel.
The design is intentionally visual because we have chosen to make knowledge accessible to a specific audience: children with an international background. This means that the use of written language has been extremely minimized to facilitate learning through images so that children who are in the process of integrating into a new country and a new language can still connect with other kids their age and their surroundings without the pressure of mastering these language skills.
Process
It all has started with a throwback to the school physics lessons: where does the electricity flow from? How to make a led to go on?
Building the first prototype of a timer required designing the printed circuit board, milling a PCB using a mining cutter, programming a micro chip ATtiny with Arduino, soldering the components on the board and bringing to life a creative version of a switch. That is what we came up with:
The next step was to prepare the concept of a workshop. During this part, the most iterations were done. With testing, it has become clear that some of the wordings could be improved, the images were providing the values we initially were not aware of etc. At the end, we got 3 written and drawn guidelines as workshop kit components. The whole process of workshop creating lasted over 5 weeks full time work of 4 people.
Authors:
PCB design, Switch Design, Programming and Soldering: Katja Khmurchyk
Written Instructions: Marvin Dominik
Graphic Novel: Raffaella Carolina
Graphic Design: Manuel Mario Siri
