Makeshop™

A creative space to play with ideas, explore materials, and tinker with tools.

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

Guest puppet makers

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  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…

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Meet a Maker!

Do you sometimes wonder who is lucky enough to work in MAKESHOP? Well, here is your chance to meet one of our talented makers! Check back every week to meet new people. This week, we introduce you to one of our Teaching Artists, Rebecca! Name: Rebecca How long have you been at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? I worked at the prototype…

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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…

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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…

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Hana-Chaser

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Two of my favorite visitors returned to the Museum a couple of days ago and created another amazing project. Their first tinkering, electronic project was dubbed the “Hanna-Occupier”.  Their latest project was a motorized car made out of simple, recycled parts. They decided to name it the “Hana-Chaser”.  I was excited to collaborate on this great project. Since these were…

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Pittsburgh is Art…

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The Museum visited the Three Rivers Arts Festival over the past two weekends. Our tent featured versions of activities that happen in the Makeshop and Studio, so we had a lot of fun letting visitors get a taste of what goes on in the Museum. We let visitors play with our ShopBots and experience some hands on woodworking processes. It’s…

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Partying at Assemble

The great thing about Pittsburgh is the size of the city and the enthusiasm of its people.  Pittsburgh is the right size to allow for collaboration between many individuals and organizations.  This is especially true in regard to the people who are offering art and technology opportunities to children, youth and families.  Although we work with many different individuals and…

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