Harrison, the teacher
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…
Indian Scouts and shopbots
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,…
Puppets and technology
How do you mix paper bag crafts with technology? Our usual answer to a question like that is “put a light on it!” Basically, we tried to figure out what we could add to a paper bag puppet to make it more “techy.” Rebecca created a very cool example that combines a paper bag with an electronic circuit. When you…
Chair + Lights = ?
The month of December is over and our GLOW theme is done, but that doesn’t mean that we are not still trying to add lights to anything and everything in MAKESHOP. After spending an entire month playing with lights and creating all kinds of switches, I decided that it would be really cool to make a chair that lights up…
Circuit block progression
I recently noticed that I have greatly changed my facilitation methods for circuit blocks. When I first started at MAKESHOP, I ran circuit blocks like a demonstration. I’d show kids how each of the various types of components worked, and then ask if they wanted to play with any of them. This didn’t last long as a style, because a…
Ready to Glow!
Every month we have a different theme, putting in activities that are new and different. December’s theme is GLOW. We’re preparing a whole lot of new activities like blacklight drawing and glowing putty, and keeping in some favorites like light painting and stop motion! We might even have real glowing mushrooms (proven non-toxic non-poisonous.) There will also be GLOW activities…
The Next Iteration
It is always great to see visitors returning to the Museum with projects that they started in MAKESHOP. This specific project was a wooden car that a boy and his grandfather had started building in MAKESHOP in June. They were hoping to add some more things to their car. They certainly came on the right day. We were prototyping some…
Circuit Experiments
We have been working on some new circuit block prototypes lately. Christian is working on a motorized generator that is constructed out of an old bike. Nick built a really cool circuit puzzle using conductive tape. These projects have really got us thinking about the future possibilities of our circuit blocks. I attempted to build a matching game that utilized…
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…
“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…