Category

“Make something that flows” This was the challenge that we presented to visitors a couple of weeks ago.  As facilitators, it was our challenge to document what visitors did when given the challenge.  Typically themes in MAKESHOP revolve around less abstract ideas like 3D objects or light, but mMake FLOW. What does that even mean? I spent about an hour in the morning thinking about this theme.  I could obs

I’ve noticed an interesting theme in the past few stop-motion animations made in MAKESHOP.  Apparently, a couple of the paper shadow puppets from our programming in the month of February have made there way over to the animation station.  There is a cut out of a shark with a movable mouth that has become the star of our stop-motion animations.  The supporting cast seems to stay the same as well.  Below are seve

Our January programmatic theme of “warmth” meant return visits by two great Guest Makers, Theresa Baughman and Deren Guler. Check out some photos from their workshops! “Warm Fuzzies” with Theresa Baughman Theresa, one of our former MAKESHOP interns, set up our workshop area with everything kids needed to sew a pillow that can be warmed up in the microwave. There wasn’t anything too compl

  Each month, our staff picks a programmatic theme for MAKESHOP that helps us to decide on what activities to provide.  Our theme in MAKESHOP for the month of February is puppets.  We decided to explore different ways to make puppets by reimagining recycled materials, sewing finger puppets and cloth puppets, building marionettes  and playing with shadows puppets.  As always, we will integrate digital media into

The month of December is over and our GLOW theme is done, but that doesn’t mean that we are not still trying to add lights to anything and everything in MAKESHOP.  After spending an entire month playing with lights and creating all kinds of switches, I decided that it would be really cool to make a chair that lights up when you sit on it. I started working on a really rough prototype that used some LED lights,

Every month we have a theme that helps us to decide on new activities for MAKESHOP.  We spent the month of December making projects and exploring materials that GLOW.  We had glow-in-the-dark fabric, UV LEDs, lots of holiday lights, light painting, and some glow-in-the-dark paint.  I had the brilliant idea to combine some of the GLOW activities with a ShopBot (what we call basically anything with a motor attached to