Makeshop™

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

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

YouthALIVE and Scratch

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YouthALIVE is an after school club for middle schoolers that takes place at the Museum. 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…

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A classroom visit

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I recently had the privilege of completing a residency at a kindergarten class at the Environmental Charter School.  The class was exploring simple machines, such as pulleys, gears, inclined planes, wheels and axles, etc.  I was asked to help plan and co-teach with their teacher, Jen.  I always enjoy visiting schools.  Typically, classes come to the Museum to explore and…

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Simple machines in MAKESHOP

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I recently had the opportunity to work with a kindergarten class from the Environmental Charter School.  We had a partnership with them that created a residency for two of our teaching artists to visit the school to plan and co-teach lessons.  Nick and I were asked to help with the first grade and a kindergarten classroom.  Nick helped the first…

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Monster Pet Workshop

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Shortly before Halloween, Amy and I ran a “Monster Pet” workshop. We had two hours and the entire workshop to help visitors through the process of brainstorming, designing, planning, and construction using both hand and machine sewing techniques. We began by brainstorming what makes a monster a monster. What kind of words would you use to describe your monster? Where does your monster…

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