Hasta La Ideas

Founded in the winter of 2009 by Alec Resnick, Michael Nagle, and Shaunalynn Duffy, sprout & co. is a “community education and research organization devoted to creating and supporting the community-driven learning, teaching and investigation of science.” The trio came out of the rigorous learning environment of MIT with a sense that education at the community level could ignite future generations of scientists and researchers.

Image courtesy of sprout & co.

However, the form this community education should take has not always been clear. sprout has gone through a series of iterations over the past few years, starting as a “public design firm” that worked on projects that the trio “felt had an educational angle even if the people [they] were working with didn’t think of it that way.” One such project was working with Somerville, MA-based Green City Growers to develop sensors to monitor the raised-bed gardens the company built. “Our interest in it,” says Alec Resnick, was that “gardens struck us as a very community-driven laboratory that nobody thinks of as a laboratory full of very rich opportunities for investigation.” Although sprout saw the opportunity for leveraging the gardens as an educational opportunity, the client did not share the same enthusiasm.

The next iteration of sprout saw Resnick, Nagle, and Duffy teaching programs to children about creative math, puzzles, and building things. “We were working out of libraries and coffee shops,” says Resnick. “The programs we were running were either happening on campus or in local schools.” Soon the need for a permanent home base became apparent.

Image courtesy of sprout & co.

Located in a residential neighborhood outside of Davis Square, the latest version of sprout consists of a wide range of workshops taught by volunteers, open “office hours,” and weekly project nights. Examples of workshops include: Locksport: Basic Lockpicking, Fluid Mechanics, Mechanical & Kinetic Sculpture, and Engineering the Wind: Design and Build Your Own Wind Turbine. sprout also recently ran a workshop in conjunction with Nervous System, teaching how to use simulations of natural phenomena to create beautiful jewelry.

The office hours, which “turn out to be most of the time,” are open to the public for consultation on any type of project. “We benefit a lot from having cool people and cool projects come through the space,” says Resnick. “For us it’s mostly like a sandbox to prototype projects and programs in.”

Image courtesy of sprout & co.

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