My passion for investing and venture capitalism sparked my interests in Sugru, and I don’t regret this one bit. Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh developed Sugru in Ireland, a student of product design. She came up with the idea in 2003 when she was studying her post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Art.
It is mouldable glue, and the best way to describe it is to call it a love child between play dough and super glue. The moment you take it out of its packaging, it feels as soft as play-dough and can be rolled into various shapes. Once out of the package, you have thirty minutes to shape it as you wish. Then the glue self-cures and hardens after twenty-four hours and stays that way. Sugru is also waterproof and durable. Sugru sticks on to mostly anything, be it wood, plastic, or metal, and it can then be molded into whatever shape you would like. You have half an hour to break it down and build it back up as many times as you would like. Sugru can actually be used in real life scenarios from fixing charging cables, earphones, hanging picture frames on to your wall, putting back broken pieces of the vase together, The possibilities are endless.
After some research and free samples, I decided to introduce it to our very first Amercian School of Doha’s Maker Faire event because I thought it would spark the children’s creativity and interest in fixing things.
I modified my PS4 controller to make it more ergonomic ( I am winning more FIFA games now, or maybe it is just a coincidence ). There was an old IKEA Lamp that never got used, and I converted that into a customized IPAD stand.
Introducing something like this in schools can change the way children think. It could spark their creativity. Perhaps this could be integrated into the maker space for elementary and middle schools.
In the midst of adding too much Technology, 1:1 laptops, Coding and Robots this could be a refreshing addition to work the young learner’s mind.
Antony Rappai 