Makeshop™

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

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

Harrison, the teacher

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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…

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Meet a Maker!

If you’ve visited the MAKESHOP on a weekend, chances are you’ve met and created with Allison! Name/ Nickname: Alison, but some of my friends and family call me Ali or Al. Favorite color: Hot pink! (And green) How long have you been working at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? I started working in MAKESHOP in August 2012 but I’ve been helping…

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Meet a Maker!

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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…

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Playtesting

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 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…

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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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Puppet Prototype

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  Each month, our staff picks a programmatic theme for MAKESHOP that helps us to decide on what activities to provide.  Our theme in MAKESHOP for the month of February is puppets.  We decided to explore different ways to make puppets by reimagining recycled materials, sewing finger puppets and cloth puppets, building marionettes  and playing with shadows puppets.  As always, we will integrate digital…

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Maker Education Initiative

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Are you 18-22 years old and interested in maker culture? Do you know a young adult who loves to tinker and enjoys working with children? We’re excited to announce a great new opportunity for this summer! MAKESHOP at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is partnering with the Maker Education Initiative, a program linked to MAKE Magazine, to launch the Maker Corps…

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Circuit block progression

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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…

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Meet a Maker!

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Meet Christian, the master of puns! Christian is one of our MAKESHOP Teaching Artists. Name: Christian Favorite color: Red (and black) How long have you been working at The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? September 2011 When did you know you were a maker? I don’t think I identified myself as a “Maker” until recently. I’ve always made, tinkered, and disassembled things though. I…

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Weaving Experiments Ahead

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Weaving is a repetitive process, and we do a lot of it, but we love it and want to keep it fresh and interesting. So every time we start a new project, we start a new experiment! Sometimes it’s special colors, an unusual pattern, or turning it into something exciting.    Our two most recent experiments are two of my all-time favorites….

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