Persistent Sculptures
A couple of days ago a brother and sister visited the MAKESHOP several times. They created a couple of interesting projects. What was really interesting was the amount of times they visited the MAKESHOP in one day. They continued to work on their projects on and off throughout the day. The younger brother worked on an “on-going” sculpture that posed…
A World Without Wheels
What happens when you limit certain materials? Say you run out of wooden wheels; an absolute staple material while running an open wood shop. Honestly, it leads to some pretty cool projects. I had several visitors who were initially going to make simple wooden cars. When they were told that there were no wheels for their projects they decided to…
Making Mistakes…
A couple of days ago two fifteen year olds visited the Museum. They approached me in the MAKESHOP and asked if they could make something. Their plan was to make an electric-powered car. They explained to me that they had about three hours to spend at the Museum and they really wanted to spend that entire time in the MAKESHOP…
Watching It Come Apart
We recently let visitors take apart and explore the inner workings of a broken printer/copier. The piece was generously donated to the MAKESHOP by our Visitor’s Services Department. This was a big project that spanned several days. It was a lot of fun dismantling these devices. Taking something apart is a great way to develop visitors’ curiosity for exploring the…
Visitors to the MAKESHOP
A couple of days ago members from our Visitor Services Department visited the MAKESHOP and spent some time making things. We were doing woodworking that day. There were some interesting creations made by the employees who work at the front desk. The Museum is a very open institution and it really shows when members of different departments can get together…
Prototyping Animation in the MakeShop
We have been discussing the idea of introducing animation or video into the MakeShop. Stop-motion animation is always fun, but how do we implement it so that visitors can easily use it and interact with it in meaningful ways? Well, we brainstorm and prototype. We already had a very crude stop-motion program developed by Greg W. of the Exhibits Department….
Young Professionals
We had a great family come into the Makeshop today. It was a group of boys, some of them were brothers and some of them were friends. They came all the way from Ohio because their oldest brother had a class assignment involved observation in the Museum. This group ended up staying in the Makeshop for almost the entire day….
YouthALIVE!
For the past month, the MakeShop team has been working with the Museum’s YouthALIVE! after school program. This program provides youth with meaningful learning activities and experiences that help them discover their potential, develop their talents and abilities and explore their interests. The MakeShop spends one day a week with these youth. It is our goal to get these young people…
A little structure and a lot of creativity
ShopBots are not entirely new for the Makeshop, but I still enjoy the project. I have done this project in many different ways: by myself, with a group of teachers, and with several classes. The one thing that I have never done is facilitated this project with visitors during a regular day at the Museum. Well, last week, we decided…
A simple story
The picture above is worth a thousand words. This group of visitors was a lot of fun to play with. They came into the MakeShop as we were setting up for an after school group. We had the entire shop set up for sewing. This group came in and immediately set about exploring everything we had to offer. They explored…