Picture Frames
I have noticed over the past year that MAKESHOP has become such a great resource for home school families. Every visitor can benefit from something in the Museum, but MAKESHOP allows for an extremely hands on experience. A couple of days ago a group of sisters ranging from age eight to twenty spent a couple of stupendous hours in MAKESHOP….
DIY Circuit Blocks
This was an extremely ambitious project that resulted in a couple great teaching moments. A mom and daughter were so fascinated with our circuit blocks that they wanted to make their own. We decided to make a battery block, a motor block and speaker block. As with any electronic project, we first had to test all of our components. Mom…
Weaving Production Team
About a month ago, two families came in together. Ages 10, 8, 8 and 5, I would normally expect them to have pretty different definitions of what was “fun” at the museum. Upon entering MAKESHOP, they discovered the loom and took turns working at it. The younger three went to look at some of the other activities, but the eldest…
Music in the MAKESHOP
Our theme for the month of August is sound and music. We have been encouraging visitors to create musical instruments, but the staff has been having a blast creating some instruments of our own. A family came in a couple of days ago and wanted to try and make a pair of harps. I have never made a harp before,…
Welcome to MAKESBURGH
I came in to work a couple of days ago to find an entire half of MAKESHOP covered in amazing cardboard structures, such as cars, boats, buildings and bridges. We’ve tried to make a cardboard town in the past, but this one is easily the most extensive. Visitors seemed to be more invested in their projects if they know that…
Our Floor Loom
Our floor loom has been around since we opened MAKESHOP last fall. I’m not sure why it took so long for me to write about it in our blog, but maybe it just took the right visitor to inspire me. “It caught my eye,” is what I was told by one of our teenage visitors. He spent over an hour…
Hana-Chaser
Two of my favorite visitors returned to the Museum a couple of days ago and created another amazing project. Their first tinkering, electronic project was dubbed the “Hanna-Occupier”. Their latest project was a motorized car made out of simple, recycled parts. They decided to name it the “Hana-Chaser”. I was excited to collaborate on this great project. Since these were…
Modern Art
Who knew that a bunch of motors attached to some junk could create such beautiful art? Well, apparently it does… We really like to make things vibrate, shake and spin by attaching motors and simple circuits to recycled materials. We decided to go a step further by adding a marker to discover what patterns our shopbots make. The result was…
The MAKESHOP is for everyone…
We are a “kids” museum, so little kids come here every day and play. Adults are allowed…no…encouraged have fun too. Case in point: A dad from California visited the MAKESHOP and had the time of his life. This particular visitor came into our Museum not expecting to have nearly as much fun as he did. He wanted to try to…
Exploring and Inventing
Who are inventors? Anyone can be an inventor… Most people probably picture an inventor as someone in a laboratory working with a bunch of complex machines. When I think of inventors, I picture anyone willing to try out something new. Kids are great at inventing things. Case in point: Usman and his “Spinny Thing”. Usman spent a lot of time…