Explaining Things Through Animation
I have been having a good time playing around with animation in MAKESHOP. Our stop-motion program allows you to create a simple movie by taking pictures of object while moving them around. A couple of days ago we had some of our conductive play-doh out for visitors to explore. The conductive play-doh acts as a conductor that can be used…
Light Painting Results
We have finally gone beyond the prototyping stage of Light Painting. Rebecca explained a lot about the process in this blog post. I have had some more time to set up the workshop side of MAKESHOP to better facilitate light painting with our visitors. The exploration of this technique is really fun. I have had kids and adults of all…
Light Painting Tests
Each month, our staff decides on a theme to help us decide what projects and activities we want to offer to our visitors. Our November theme is “Time” and we’ve been messing around in the shop, brainstorming some fun, open-ended activities that emphasize the idea of time passing. We knew we wanted to do some light painting, so we started…
MAKESHOP Superhero Gadgets
We get our fair share of crime-fighting gadgets here in the ‘shop. Grappling hooks come and go in waves, and lightsabers are always popular. We’ve seen Iron Man-style repulsers, and plenty of Batman-inspired costume pieces. There’s a foam samurai getup on one of the dress forms, and I myself am guilty of making a magazine-paper broadsword and plate armor combo. Usability is a huge…
Three Days in the MAKESHOP
What can you do with a ton of newspaper? We weren’t entirely sure. Someone suggested we do “rolled newspaper projects.” That quickly blossomed into a ” giant newspaper sculpture!” So over the span of a week, we let visitors add to our collaborative sculpture. This was a really fun activity to do. What was even more fun was filming the…