Sharks in MAKESHOP
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….
MAKESHOP Panoramas
Last April, MAKESHOP was photographed by a robot. A robot named GigaPan, which uses motors and gears to move the camera and press the shutter button. After all these zoomed-in, super-detailed photos are taken, a special program “stitches” them together so it looks like one long photo that is bigger, longer and more detailed than a regular camera is able to see at…
Meet a Maker!
Meet our fearless leader and MAKESHOP Manager, Adam! Name: Adam Favorite color: Yellow How long have you been working at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? August 2010 When did you know you were a maker? As a child, I would help my grandparents to cook, sew, paint, fix things up, and do little odd jobs around the house. I got a sewing…
Make something that rolls
The Museum’s YouthALIVE program visits MAKESHOP once a month. YouthALIVE is an after-school program of Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. The group is made up of middle school students from a school across the street. Lately, we’ve been giving the students a challenge to complete. This week, we asked them to create something that rolls. The students had three days to…
A Week in MAKESHOP (in two minutes)
MAKESHOP is not a static exhibit. It changes to accommodate a variety of activities and programs, such as schools groups, guest makers, play-testing, meetings, photo shoots, themed activities, etc. Tables get moved, messes are made (and cleaned up), things are broken (and fixed), and everyone has fun. We made a time-lapse video of the workshop side of MAKESHOP over the span of an…
Playtesting
A couple of Saturdays ago Gary and Sarah Gardiner of Dream Flight Adventures spent some time in MAKESHOP prototyping a new interactive, educational program. Gary has been developing this interactive software for quite some time and recently he was asked to implement it into a classroom in Shaler Area School District. The program is really fun to experience and I can…
3D Modeling
If you’re a frequent visitor to our space or this blog, you may know that we have a MakerBot Replicator. We pulled it out recently for Youth Maker Night, an event for older children and young teens. We figured it would be a fun thing to check out while people were snacking in between working on projects. Unfortunately, some of the printer settings were accidentally reset before the event…
A year’s visit
Thomas and Aiden visited the Museum with their dad a year ago. The family is from Buffalo, NY and they visit Pittsburgh once a year. Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is always one of their stops. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with them during last year’s visit. There is an older blog post that I wrote about…
Guest puppet makers
A couple of weeks ago, we were visited by artists Zach Dorn and Murphi Cook. Zach and Murphi are two local artists. Zach was even a participant in the Museum’s Tough Art program two years ago. This particular Saturday had the two of them making shadow puppets with our visitors. They had a very simple set up with a…
Knitting with YouthALIVE!
Knit the Bridge is a local art initiative by the Fiber Arts Guild to cover an entire Pittsburgh bridge with colorful knit (or crocheted) panels. MAKESHOP has hosted a KtB drop-off box, and we’ve had several visits in the past from guest KtB knitters. Last week, KtB brought a team of high school students from a KtB school residency to run a…