A few weeks ago, we encouraged the students to do some simple digital programming projects.  The students explored with 3D printing, our EggBot, and Scratch.

Scratch (you can access their website here) is an amazing program developed by MIT.  Scratch is a a great way for children to explore simple computer programming.  The interface is very intuitive and the program is extremely open ended.

The YouthALIVE students worked in groups and explored Scratch for two days.  They had a lot of fun drawing and modifying their own characters/sprites.  They were then able to manipulate their characters by programming them to do certain things like change color and move around the screen.

They especially liked the fact that you could record your own voice and then program that into your project.  There were some really funny sound effects created during these two classes.  The students had a lot of fun exploring Scratch.  It is really empowering to realize that you can create your own form of fun instead of just playing a pre-existing game.

Easily the most funny thing to come out of these two classes (other than Curtis’ voice recording for a spinning, cartoon dragon animation) was the debate over “light sabers” versus “life savers.”  The debate culminated with the quote, “they’re called ‘life savers’ because they save lives!”  Too funny.

As always, working with the YouthALIVE students is a joy for the Teaching Artists in MAKESHOP.

-Kevin

Typically, we only have attendees explore and create in MAKESHOP and STUDIO.  This time, we opened the entire first floor of the Museum for the adults to play in.  This included MAKESHOP and STUDIO, along with the Attic which houses our very trippy Gravity Room (no glass bottles allowed).

Adults were also encouraged to climb and launch parachutes in our Garage Workshop.  Our Changing Gallery is currently filled with interactive art pieces that invite you to “Move with Art.”  There are also several art installations that are fully interactive in the hallway between all of these exhibits.  There were a lot things for everyone to play.

It is always a pleasure to watch adults having the same amount of fun as children.  The Museum is not just for kids and this night proved it.  Ove 150 adults climbed, sewed, painted, slid down slides, and hula hooped throughout the Museum.

It was great fun for everyone involved.  Thanks to all who attended and the staff who made this night possible.  Our latest MAKEnight was one to remember. The next MAKEnight will be held in July. Please visit our blog for more information.

-Kevin

MAKESHOP was recently transformed into an interactive spaceship.  Gary Gardner and his Dream Flight Adventures prototype returned to MAKESHOP for another day of playtesting with our visitors.  He has already playtested his program at the Museum and a post describing that visit can be found here.  He brought with him a newer version of the flight simulator software that he is currently developing for the Shaler School District.

The last time Gary was here we discussed changing up the set up of the room, tech stuff, and general visitor interaction.  For this visit, we set up MAKESHOP a little differently.  I procured a larger projection screen and we set up the tables to better encourage visitors to work together while they played.  Gary also brought a joystick that allowed visitors to pilot the spaceship within the digital realm.  This added a little more fun to the experience.

We didn’t simply explore space this time around.  A group of visitors were challenged to locate a giant squid while navigating underwater.  During this adventure, the pilot and navigator both asked why there weren’t headlights on the ship.  Gary made a quick note and told the two boys that he just might take their advice into consideration when he creates the next version of the program.  This is a great example of why we test projects with kids.

The group discovered the giant squid after a lot of searching and teamwork between the pilots and the biologist.  Now if we could only incorporate some literature and search for a white whale.  I’m sure Gary could write a program for that adventure.

Thanks again to Gary and the whole Dream Flight Adventures team for visiting MAKESHOP once again.  Be sure to check the Museum’s web calender to see when the next playtest will be.

-Kevin

Harrison is a regular visitor to the Museum and has been mentioned before in this blog here.  A couple of days ago, he visited MAKESHOP with an agenda.  He needed help soldering some components.  I can certainly help someone solder something, but Harrison really helped me understand what it means to turn your imagination into reality.

Harrison planned on creating a remote control for his room.  He was planning to hook up his lights, thermostat, and other devices to a central control system that could be operated by a single remote.  He was building the bedroom of the future.  His plan was to re-purpose a remote control kit that did not function exactly how he wanted.  He mapped out all the areas that he would need to solder wires to the remote.  I was just his extra set of hands while we soldered leads to the circuit board.

While we soldered, Harrison explained more of his plans to me.  Most of it went right over my head.  He was doing things with Arduino that I did not fully understand.  I explained to Harrison that I typically teach really little kids, therefore I don’t typically delve into the realm of programming and Arduino very often.

Harrison then told me about a class that he was teaching at his school.  He’s teaching an Intro to Arduino and programming class to students a grade above him.  I would probably benefit from taking that class!

Harrison and I are both teachers and learners.  I am glad to know kids who genuinely enjoy learning and it’s great to have MAKESHOP as a resource for them.

-Kevin

On two different recent Saturday afternoons we invited visitors to help us create a typeface — or nice looking collection of letters, numbers and symbols, like a comma or question mark — that we are going to turn into a font, or tool we can use to write with this typeface on a computer. Each visitor who participated picked one or more glyphs (any of the letters, numbers or symbols) to design.

The visitors arranged small 1″ x 1″ pieces of paper on a grid to design the shape of their glyph. There were squares, triangles, “lemon shapes”, teardrops, and other rounded-corner options to build with. The only rule was that there can be only one piece of white paper per grid square, and it must fit entirely within the square. We used these paper pieces to prototype (or test) the designs, because they’re very easy to more, correct and change.  The designers had to use their knowledge of allographs (what does an “A” have to have to make it look like an “A”?), think in a constrained grid system with limited shapes, and design creatively to create an attractive letterform.

Once our typographers were happy with their glyph, we used the free website Fonstruct to make the designs digital. The website works with the same system of shaped pixels on a grid, so it was relatively easy to replicate the pattern on the computer. We entered some of the designs, but a number of visitors chose to do this step themselves. This required counting, matching shapes, double-checking designs, navigating a 2-axis grid system, and using digital tools.

Every part of this typeface looks different because so many people added to this creation. Now that all of our glyphs are completed, we can write a pangram, or sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet:

We named this font “MAKESHOP Prototypeface” (prototype + typeface) because this was a prototype for how we can make usable digital tools with visitors, and the visitors themselves prototyped the typeface with pieces of paper before they settled on a design.

Our visitors did all the hard work, and now you can download the font (or from Fontstruct, here) for free and use it for anything you want! What do you think of the design? Make something cool with it? Tell us about it!

Name/ Nickname: Alison, but some of my friends and family call me Ali or Al.

Favorite color: Hot pink! (And green)

How long have you been working at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh?
I started working in MAKESHOP in August 2012 but I’ve been helping with learning research at CMP since the end of 2011.

When did you know you were a maker?
I never even heard the term “maker” until I started working at the museum. I’ve always been crafty —  thanks to 13 years of Girl Scouts. When I was growing up, you could always find me doing some type of DIY craft project or helping around the house. I went through a few rubber stamping and scrapbooking phases and I had an old, green Singer sewing machine from the ’50s. I also spent a good bit of time helping my Dad with his stereo — adjusting speaker cables or changing out his record machine’s needle. Now, I spend most of my making time doing things for around my house, like sewing curtains, repainting old dressers, and anything to spice up my decor.

Who or what influences what you make?
I spend WAY TOO MUCH time on Pinterest, but I get a lot of my inspiration from projects I see on there. Sometimes I just wander around stores like Target or TJ Maxx and think, “That looks cool, but I bet I can make something exactly like it for a lot cheaper!”

What is the most important thing you’ve learned by working at the MAKESHOP?
You’ll never learn something new unless you try it. I remember being terrified of the soldering iron before I learned how to use it, but I tried it and now I can say I know how to solder metal. SO COOL!

What do you not know how to do?
Lots of things! I’m not very good at woodworking or electronics, so I’m constantly learning something new in the workshop. The top thing on my list to learn how to do it, though, would have to be bottle slumping. I’d love to be able to slump a glass bottle into a cheese tray.

When you are not in the MAKESHOP, what do you do for fun?
I’ve recently started running A LOT, so I spend a lot of time running through different Pittsburgh neighborhoods and trails. I’m currently training to run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in May!

If you were a material or tool, what would you be?
A fun, sparkly button!

Thinking About Type Design and Typography:

• Where do you see numbers and letters around you? Inside? Outside? On clothes, television and posters?
• Find a book, a newspaper and a magazine. How are the letters inside different from each other? How are they the same?
• When you find letters, talk about what shapes they are made of. Are they pointy, round, in-between? Are they skinny, fat, medium? Are they slanted or straight? Which ones do you like best?
• Look at the parts of letters: the up-and-down parts, the side-to-side parts, diagonal parts, rounded parts, the inside and outside, left and right. How are these parts the same or different?
• Find something that has fancy looking letters on it and something that has plain looking letters. What makes them fancy or plain? What would happen if you switched them and put the fancy letters where the plain ones were? Why would it be better to use one kind and not the other?
• Find at least one book belonging to a kid and one book belonging to an adult. Look at the words on the front, back and inside. How are they all different? What would the book be like if all the words were the same size and shapes as the words on the cover?

Some Typographic Projects and Exercises to Try:

• Start a collection of interesting looking letters. Cut them out of magazines and newspapers, take photos and print them, etc. Keep them in a binder or envelopes. My favorites to collect are “a”, “g”, “&”, “8” and “q” shapes!
• Write a something using letters and words cut from different places. It could be a ransom note, a grocery list, an invitation to a party….
• Research illuminated manuscripts. One famous example is the Book of Kells, which inspired a beautifully-animated movie, The Secret of Kells, whose protagonist is an apprentice illuminator. Illuminate a favorite book, story or poem.
• Use a computer or cut-out letters to create typographic portrait.
• Create a Worldle of something important (a list of favorite things, adjectives that describe you, things you want to do someday). Play with the size, color and shape of the words.
• Use a hammer, nails and string to create an awesome sign for your bedroom.
• Grab some water and a brush (or a broom!) and practice writing on a sidewalk or your driveway, like Chinese ground calligraphers.
• Practice writing upside-down and backwards. Are you as good as Murat Ünver?
• Paint a word, like Edward Ruscha (he didn’t always use paint to paint!)
• Write careful, beautiful words in chalk, like Dana Tanamachi
• Use pieces of paper to create letterforms, like Yulia Brodskaya.
• The word “calligraphy” means “beautiful writing”. Try making your letters as detailed and beautiful as Seb Lester‘s.
• Practice writing pangrams, or sentences that have every letter, using different ways of writing: normal, fancy, pretty, ugly, only straight lines, only curvy lines, etc. Try to show different emotions or feelings in the way you write your letters (happy, angry, confused, sad, scared, etc).

Some pangrams to practice writing:

The five boxing wizards jump quickly.
A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Watch “Jeopardy!”, Alex Trebek’s fun TV quiz game.
Grumpy wizards make a toxic brew for the jovial queen.
Few black taxis drive up major roads on quiet hazy nights.

Or make your own! Here’s a fun online tool to help.

I had the opportunity to teach a Saturday workshop about electricity to a group of Indian Scouts.  The group consisted of fifteen kindergartners and fifteen dads.  I’m not sure who had more fun… me, the kids, or the dads. I think the dads did.  I gave the group the challenge to use some motors and batteries to make something… anything.  As usual, there was no right or wrong.  My only instruction was to make sure you batteries and motor worked.  Above is a picture of the workshop before they built there projects.  The below is a picture of the aftermath.

It might look like a huge mess, but I see a room where some real making took place.  The dads and kids did a great job of working together.  They experimented with ideas, they brainstormed, and showcased what worked and what didn’t.  These kind of workshops that allow families to work together to build something or solve a problem are great.

Thanks again to the Indian Scouts for asking us to let them come to MAKESHOP to explore and build and have fun.

-Kevin

So far, we’ve had three very productive sessions, each resulting in a playable game.  One of the games has a tricky puzzle with a dog that can move on its own throughout the space — an impressive bit of coding, especially from a visitor who’d never even seen a text adventure game before!  We even got a chance to beta-test the game with several nearby visitors, and changed the game a bit based on their input.  I won’t say any more, to avoid spoiling the game: you can play it yourself at playfic.com.

If you are interested in computer programming, then check out our upcoming workshops: Making Computer Games on April 14 and Computer Programming on April 21.

On February 22nd, we held our second Youth Maker Night.  This was an after-hours event with a lot of tweens and teens, and no parents.  We offered some new activities for the youth to try, including felting, recycled derby cars, e-textiles, tinkering with motors, and a demonstration of a 3D printer.  It took the kids awhile to ease into the activities. They had the freedom to choose whatever activity they wanted.  Some kids bounced around from space to space while others concentrated on one project while others made up activities of their own.  We had a very intensely focused group of boys who spent a lot of time working with our circuit blocks, just like they did at the last event! This time they tried to get a motorized counter to spin as fast as possible.

It’s funny, we spent a lot of time thinking of activities for the youth but sometimes it’s best to let them do what they want.  One boy was interested in the loom so we let him work on that.  A group wanted to make paper airplanes so we let them do that.  We hadn’t planned on doing any electronic tinkering, but that was of high interest.  Its hard to predict what this age group is going to be interested in. We are still learning!

Of course, the youth still liked the special activities that we provided.  There was a group that did sewing the entire time.  There was a boy that made the biggest felt ball I have ever seen.  There were some kids that spent over an hour simply testing their recycled cars and making adjustments and testing again.  As always, it is a lot of fun to have this age group in MAKESHOP.  The space is really set up for teenagers to take full advantage of everything we have to offer.

We offer a lot of special programming for children, ages 8-15. Check out our upcoming Making Computer Games Workshop and Computer Programming Workshop.

-Kevin