Tinkering Studio New permanent exhibit now open!
The Tinkering Studio is an immersive, active, creative place where museum visitors can slow down, become deeply engaged in an open-ended experiment, and make something that represents their ideas. Tinkering is all about making discoveries and using those discoveries in creative ways.
There’s always something new going on in the Tinkering Studio. Here are just a few of the exciting things happening in the Tinkering Studio:
• Draw your own animation and watch it move with the zoetrope.
• Build a flying contraption out of egg cartons, pasteboard, cardboard tubes, or bits of plastic that will fly in the Wind Tubes.
• Create a roller coaster for a marble with supplies from the hardware store on our Marble Wall.
• Use recycled materials to construct a fun hand crank toy Automata.
Why Tinker? Many great inventors like Thomas Edison, Stephen Jobs and Art Fry, the inventor of the post-it note, as well as educators such John Dewey have noted the great value of open-ended exploration. Tinkering, focused activity with the right materials in the right environment, can lead to great new inventions, but more importantly builds self-confidence, critical thinking skills, and crucial attitudes that build people’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. It teaches students and families that they too can create new inventions, that they can dream new things, then actually build them, can ask bold questions and answer them through focused exploration. more
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