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…
Fifth Period: Shop Class
Every Sunday I find myself venturing into the MakeShop just to see what’s going on. Lately we’ve been allowing visitors to experiment and build using wood. Visitors are able to create whatever kind of project they want using our tools and materials. First off, visitors are asked to draw up a blueprint of their project. Visualizing your project is incredibly…
WoodShop Begins
It’s been quite a change, moving from the malleable and forgiving materials of SewShop to the hard-bodied solidity of wood, and making the adjustment from electrical-powered sewing machines to a cadre of hand-powered tools. Already with WoodShop I am discovering a completely different kind of reaction to the tools and materials we’re using. Hammers and nails are nearly ubiquitous, and…
Some Reflections on SewShop
Last week we wrapped up SewShop, sorted through all the scrap fabric, put the bear-repair teddies out of their misery and put our sewing machines back in storage (for now). Many of the visitors (not just the youngest ones!) were completely new to the world of sewing and textile manipulation. Quite a few had never cut fabric before, never held…