Stop-Motion Joke
Michael has been to MAKESHOP before. His favorite thing to do is stop-motion animation. He came in a couple of days ago and couldn’t find the stop-motion computer. We move things around a lot in MAKESHOP, so I showed him where the computer was residing and he got right to work. His first animation was about the “fiscal cliff,” but…
Repurposing Jeans
It was around three o’clock in the afternoon when Katie came into MAKESHOP with an old pair jeans in tote. She explained to me that the jeans had holes in them and her mom wanted to throw them out. Instead, Katie brought the jeans to the Museum to turn them into something new. Katie has been to MAKESHOP before, so…
Laser cutting for anyone
Anyone can do it… A typical day at work in MAKESHOP can be hard to predict. A couple of days ago, I was taught how to use a laser cutter. An amazing team of students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center spent an entire semester developing an iPad app to allow someone like me to do something like use…
The youngest beings in MAKESHOP
In April, we celebrated Earth Day by helping visitors plant seeds in recycled containers. Our visitors learned about the basic needs of plants as they carefully filled their chosen containers with dirt, seeds, and water. Most of the planted seeds went home with families, but we kept some here. We had a variety of seeds to choose from: quick growing…
Interactive Fiction
We’ve been running a series of Sunday afternoon demonstrations of computer programming using Inform 7, which is a programming language for creating stories that you can play like a game. Visitors learned about using nouns and verbs to navigate story games, then about how to write code to make their very own story worlds. We used an online version of Inform…
Mermaid Puppet
When 4-year-old Reese came in, she was sure she wanted to make something… she just wasn’t sure what. After seeing a prototype marionette our Teaching Artist Lea had made, she was immediately inspired. “My favorite princess is Ariel. I’m going to make a mermaid puppet,” she declared, “And when I get home I’m going to put on a puppet show…
Animation and a lot of jewelry
Michael and Katie are two kids who really took full advantage of MAKESHOP. They spent some time getting introduced to two different projects, mainly stop-motion animation and jewelry making. After an introduction, they set out to create several amazing and varied projects. Katie spent some time making felt balls out of wool and then proceeded to make necklace using her…
“Warmth” Workshops
Our January programmatic theme of “warmth” meant return visits by two great Guest Makers, Theresa Baughman and Deren Guler. Check out some photos from their workshops! “Warm Fuzzies” with Theresa Baughman Theresa, one of our former MAKESHOP interns, set up our workshop area with everything kids needed to sew a pillow that can be warmed up in the microwave. There wasn’t…
Bombs away!
These days in Pittsburgh, I find myself sitting around waiting for signs of spring. Until last weekend. I found the perfect remedy to beat the wintertime blues… BATH BOMBS! What better way to treat yourself than soaking up warmth in a bath tub or hot tub, knowing you made your very own bath fizzy. The ingredients and directions are quite…
Glowing Bots!
Every month we have a theme that helps us to decide on new activities for MAKESHOP. We spent the month of December making projects and exploring materials that GLOW. We had glow-in-the-dark fabric, UV LEDs, lots of holiday lights, light painting, and some glow-in-the-dark paint. I had the brilliant idea to combine some of the GLOW activities with a ShopBot…