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…
Makeshop Guest: Leah Beuchley
This week Leah Buechley came to visit! It was exciting. A little introduction: Leah Buechley was a major contributor to the development of the Lilypad Arduino, and is a professor at the MIT Media Lab . Her research group… “…integrates high and low technological materials, processes, and cultures. Our primary aim is to engage diverse audiences in designing and building their…
MakerBot in MAKESHOP
We have a new toy in MAKESHOP — a MakerBot Replicator 3D printer! It’s on loan to us from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and we finally broke it out to play with it! Calling this machine a “printer” isn’t entirely accurate: this isn’t a printer like the one on the corner of your desk or even…
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…
Making MAKESHOP™
Join us and professionals from museums across the country to learn about the design, development and practice of MAKESHOP™ at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Discuss practical ways to integrate authentic and supportive making experiences for children and families into your museum. Meet and mingle with our city’s dynamic maker community, and experience Pittsburgh’s annual Mini Maker Faire! We will explore…
Building a Xylophone
No one told me to build a Xylophone. I didn’t know how to build a Xylophone either. I tried anyways. It is not just the visitors who get to make things in the MAKESHOP. It took a lot of thinking, a lot of scrap wood and a lot of mistakes, but I still produced something. It makes noise, which is…
Making Use of a Record Player
We needed something that spins for our kaleidoscope workshops. I was planning on making something like a big spinning wheel, but by coincidence, an employee from another department dropped off an old record player. It was a great coincidence! I own a record player and I use it to play music. I never thought I’d be using a record player…
Prototyping with Visitors
Here’s some footage of our first attempt to make kaleidoscopes with visitors. Anyone can look up a project online and assume that people will enjoy it. I’m the kind of person who needs to get the opinions of visitors before I believe that an activity is worth doing. Plus, I really enjoy having the opportunity to teach something new. In…
Making Messes
It seems that no matter who I work with, whether it’s with a fellow educator or a little kid, my work spaces end up looking like the above two pictures. Sometimes having a mess can help you be a little more creative. -Kevin
a Sunday spent Prototyping is a Sunday spent playing
I love it when there are new toys to play with at the Museum; this Sunday presented me with not one but two. I already knew about the DIY Pinball created by Felix in the MakeShop; I briefly played with it on Saturday and made it clear that I would spend all day Sunday playing with the thing if time…