Goofing off at Maker Faire
We hosted the second annual Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire last week. It was a lovely day full of lovely people. I could go on in great detail about all the gadgets and amazing inventions on display. Instead, what I noticed most during the day was a sense of goofiness. Everyone was genuinely having fun. We had so much fun at…
SparkTruck Pit Stop
We had some amazing guests visit the Museum from Stanford University in sunny California. Jason, Didi and Eugene have spent the summer traveling across the United States in a mobile workshop dubbed the SparkTruck. Check it out! Along the way, they have been stopping at museums, community centers, events, and parks… Anywhere they can find. Their truck is full of various…
Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire Recap
This past weekend, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and HackPittsburgh hosted the second annual Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire, showcasing makers from the Southwestern Pennsylvania region. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with what makes someone a maker, you’re not alone. A maker is any person who devotes creativity, energy, and time to simply creating. It doesn’t matter if…
Renaissance Faire Field Trip
The day after Pittsburgh’s Mini Maker Faire I decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Faire…What a weekend! The DIY spirit was in full force at the Ren Faire. Vendors were selling all kinds of wares, from handmade armor to beautiful ceramics. Much like the Maker Faire, the Ren Faire was filled with people having a good time. I would say…
“MAKE”-APART
I really enjoy when visitors add their projects or creations to MAKESHOP. For example, two visitors, Max and Joey, helped build a new component for our Circuit Block Table. They repurposed a wheel from a remote control and the motor from a broken model boat. I showed them how to test the motor with a battery to see if it…
Making MAKESHOP
A couple of days ago, we hosted a “Making MAKESHOP” workshop. Participants of the workshop visited from Museums and other institutions from around the country. All of them were interested in developing a maker space of their own. We decided to share some of our secrets with them. Over the course of two days, we played, talked, asked and answered…
MAKESBURGH Stop-Motion
We decided that the best thing to do with our cardboard village was to make a stop-motion video using all of our visitors’ creations. We knew that we could not keep MAKESBURGH forever, so why not immortalize this amazing project in video form. Thanks to the MAKESHOP interns and the visitors who helped take pictures and animated all of the…
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…
Video Call for Makers
The Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire just posted a Video Call for Makers! There’s only 1 week left to apply for Round I to be one of the featured makers at this year’s Faire. Check out the video and don’t miss your chance to be a maker-star at this year’s 2nd annual Faire! Learn more at www.pghmakerfaire.com.
Join Assemble for M3!
Our friends at Assemble are hosting a series of awesome workshops for children. Materials, Media and Me (M3) is a series of Saturday afternoon workshops for children ages 8-10. Each week, a different artist or technologist will introduce a material, show students how they use the material, and lead them through a project. M3 classes will highlight Metal, Paper, Fabric,…