Serious Play Forum

[PARAG GADHIA]

Hi,

I would like to know how critical is Exploration Bag kit for LSP facilitator.

What are the various aspects where it will be useful

Can we do without it? Can we do the same stuff with identity kit?

In India it’s difficult to get this kit as it is not shipped here?

Regards
Parag

[Stephen Dann]

I use it quite extensively as a many-users, many-teams kit, where I have a large audience and I want to ensure that everyone in the room has access to the same hardware. It’s a much smaller package – 49 pieces per unit, and quite different from the Starter kit. I do have the inventory of both kits available on my mecabricks page if you’re interested in the compare and contrast.

For me, the big value comes from the sheer volume of kits letting me run 20 to 25 groups of 4 in small group discussions in a classroom. That said, there is another cost to factor in acquiring the kits — they’re served up in single use plastic bags, so you need something to store them – tins, cases, ziplock bags or pencil cases.

If you’re doing smaller workshops, you’re probably okay without them – I just happen to have a market of university lectures where I need 100+ kits at any one time

[Francine Masson]

Stephen,
Would you mind specifying for me, if you have a room of 100 person, do you carry 100 Exploration kits or do you use 1kit per group of 4? Will you also use Starter kit. How many for 100 person please ? Your precision will be much appreciated, as I’m planning an up coming event that could have between 80 to 100 person.
Francine

[Stephen Dann]

I always start with one kit per person. I run a couple of preset routines in my workshop where everyone having the same pieces is super useful for the experience. For example, a 15 brick exercise, with 5 compulsory bricks, (Set A or Set B), and free choice after that – everyone has a similar starting point for their builds, and a wildly divergent outcome.

I have tried using the starter kits as proxy landscape/identity kits, but for 80 to 100 people, I’d be running the Window Kits

[PARAG GADHIA]

Thanks Stephen for your response.
What sort of workshops do you run using Exploration bag? Dont you require identity kit for the workshop?

Can you elaborate on a 15 brick exercise, with 5 compulsory bricks, (Set A or Set B), and free choice after that exercises.

I generally use tower build for skill building.

Regards,
Parag

[Francine Masson]

Thank you Stephen,
I guess having enough bricks is always the big question when planning activities.
I cannot forsee myself carrying 100 seperate Starter kit at an event, even with support of a helper, with the storage planning it all becomes very complicated. I will have to think of some condition to interest the client to invest and keep the kits after I guess. Average event around here usually is up to 40 or 50 max.
Warm regards,
Francine

[Stephen Dann]

@Francine
I should put up a picture of my office. The entire back wall is boxes of lego boxes. I’ve been using the Adafruit (Large Tin With Clear Top Window) as my cases for individual window kits, and found they stack really well into a travel luggage organiser in blocks of 32 – instant 8 teams of 4 options. I also have the sorter sheet over on Mecabricks for restoring the kits to their 49 piece starting line up.

@paraggadhia – the 15 brick exercise is a modification based on the Explain This! from the Starter kit.

With the client, we set a question that the participant won’t see until after they’ve selected the pieces – I do a few exercises where it’s the first of a question pair (eg what have you learnt / how will you use it; what are you goals / what is the next step towards that goal)

Participants get a pair of compulsory choice sets, usually with a brick crossover between the two, and free choice to pick other pieces – there’s variance as to whether the minifig is one or three bricks, or if the rotor + attaching brick is one or two. They get a few minutes to pick, then get shown the question – it’s about intentionally creating cognitive dissonance, and having that moment of “Well, if I knew what the question was, I would have picked differently”. Then a build time of two or three minutes, and by the end, they’re using abstract creations to share rich stories with each other – it’s a real transformative moment from “The Power is In The Right Piece” to “The Power is in the Story Maker”.

Where there’s a second question, I’ll often provide an octoplate (part 89523) for use as a base for the challenge question, and then participants can build onto/atop or in response to their challenge model.

I do use an identity kit + landscape kit on occasion – I’ve renamed my kit the BB-K (base build kit), and bring that into play when we’re looking at a major collaborative build opportunity – most of the time, because I get 90 minutes to 2 hours, I restrict it to the Window Kits though. If I am running BB-K, people do their skills build exercise (Tower, Metaphor, 15 brick) with Windows, and then transfer over to the BB-K

[PARAG GADHIA]

Thank You Stephen for your response. I really like question pair instead of single question. Would like to explore more on that.

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