Chain Reaction Debrief Details - Sept. 21

We sat down with the Design IT students from ALA after we ran the Chain Reaction Activity on the museum floor and asked them to talk about what things they saw that worked really well and what they saw about the activity that we could improve. Here is the list of their comments:
1. There were a large number of people involved - this was a plus!!
2. There were many different kinds of people involved - another plus.
3. Some people used more than just the materials they were given or told about - they made use of their surroundings - we loved this!
4. The dynamic of using new materials with the visitors excited the students.
5. Some people were shy, others were more outspoken - the kids had to change their approaches to different people.
6. Some of the students found that just being available and waiting for questions to be asked of them was very effective.
7. The students remarked that they were seen and treated by some of the visitors as experts.
8. They all understood and remarked that open communication between themselves, the visitors, and each other was necessary for success.
9. The students saw that with some people they needed to give some advice on what might be possible and others did not need prodding.
10. The majority of the visitors in the space were older kids (high school) so they seemed to work really well together as teams of people.
11. The playfulness of the students and the facilitators (some of our new facilitators participated as builders) was an open door for new communication,
12. The extreme creativity was staggering!!
13. Some of the students really worked well with people in their immediate area.

Some of the things mentioned that needed some improvement:
1. There needed to be more space.
2. Needed more crowd control.
3. More supplies?
4. There needed to be one set facilitator of the activities.
5. (the visitors in questioned were made to leave after only one challenge time) More time with visitors was requested.
6. There were some communication barriers, as some of us do not speak spanish and some of our visitors only spoke Spanish (Eddie was a Godsend here to help get people interested and motivated!)

All of these ideas will be taken into account as the final activity takes shape for the Mindfest weekend event itself.

Jonathon