KAOS Kids

with Elizabeth Chin and KAOS Network, Summer 2021 - present

KAOS Kids is an Afrofuturist culture school that holds free, drop-in educational activities for Leimert Park Village youth and their families. Participants flock weekly to our activation site, the sidewalk in front of KAOS Network, to learn chess, cultivate technology skills (electronics and VR), play games, and deepen their connection to their community. KAOS Kids participants leave our activations inspired to continue leveraging their creativity to pursue new ideas and contribute to the neighborhood.

Hey, Do You Want to Build a Robot?

Hey, Do You Want to Build a Robot? is the name of the most popular of numerous hands-on technology activities Elizabeth and I have been deploying at KAOS Network. The success of this particular activity inspired our current KAOS Kids initiative.

"On Saturday afternoons from 2:00-5:00pm Casey Anderson and Elizabeth Chin are sitting at tables set up on the corner of Leimert and 43rd. The table is covered with toothbrushes, hot glue guns, and a host of supplies for electronics and art projects. As people walk by, we cheerily call out, “Hey, Do You Want to Make a Robot?” This is our invitation to interaction, where the robot is at once a provocation, a relationship-builder, and an entry into conversations, collaboration, and technology literacy from the bottom up. The robots are simple, made of toothbrushes, a coin battery, and a small motor. For the past two years we’ve been making them with three-year-olds, 83-year-olds, and everything in between." (excerpted from an in-progress article by Chin and Anderson)