32、A workshop on creature animation in zoos and aquariums

 

Hiromi TAKAO

Marblewokshop

 

Marble Workshop is an organization that plans and manages workshops at museums (Science Museum, Aquarium, including Zoo), which was established in August 2011. We are graduates of the Aoyama Gakuin University workshop designer training course, composed of members with diverse backgrounds.
We introduce a practical report of new workshops that express the motion of living creatures with computer animation.
Our tool, Viscuit, is a visual programming language that generates animation easily. Its user-interface is very simple, so children can use it by themselves.
Our workshop includes the following steps.

1) Children observe living creatures carefully.
2) They record the motions on sheets of paper.
3) They create Viscuit programs to express a creature’s motion.
4) Animation is projected together with other children’s animations.
5) Go to step 1, if they want to create another creature’s animation.

A projection using animation is helpful in understanding other children's observations, and is also fun!
As a new creature observation technique for the generation of digital natives, and as a program that triggers an increase in the interest of creatures in all people, we hope to continue the practice repeatedly.