This week for Studio/Lab we visited doctoral student Eric Rosenbaum from the MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten group. The mission of the Lifelong Kindergarten group is to “develop new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpaint of kindergarten, expand the range of what people can design, create, and learn.” And true to its playful ethos, the lab is full of legos.
With a background in neuroscience, music, and education, Rosenbaum is the co-inventor of Makey Makey, an invention kit which allows users to turn everyday objects — from ketchup to silverware to pencil graphite to finger paint — into touchpads that connect to the internet. Rosenbaum’s other projects include software for finger painting with sound, painting with light, improvising with looping sounds, and creating interactive behaviors in 3D virtual worlds.
