workshops

**Workshop #1: Build a Robot from Scratch**
Take apart an electric fan and build a “vibrobot” made of found objects (wire, mint tin, batteries and fan motor). Decorate the robots and have them meet and greet in the “robot arena”.

Presenters: David VanEsselstyn and Jenny Young, Co-Founders, Brooklyn Robot Foundry, Brooklyn, NY

Brooklyn Robot Foundry creates environments where kids, moms, dads and others can share in "The Fun of the Build". Currently they run "pop-up foundries" and are working towards opening a dedicated storefront workshop.

**Workshop #2: Build, Test and Take Home a Vibrocraft**
Become involved with an artful experiment that is part of the English Scientist Neil Downie’s collection of exciting classical science and engineering experiments (offered to college and secondary school students and now adapted for novice experimenters – 9 year olds). Experience how the Vibrocraft has evolved through a dozen iterations, each refined by every hand that touched it to make construction easier, experiment more open, and play a pleasure.

Presenters: Wm Brown, Director and Sally Hill, Associate Director, Principal Designer, Eli Whitney Museum, Hamden, CT

Hacking Neil Downie is a program of the Eli Whitney Museum where projects engage senses and skills that complement classroom and community learning. 42,000 projects that relate to science, engineering, math, social studies, art, literacy and technology are made in classrooms and afterschool programs that serve the curricula. The vacation, holiday and weekend workshops are another 35,000 projects.

**Workshop #3: Make a Pop-up Card Lit by LEDs**
Experience sewing tech, e-textiles and wearable electronics when you work on making a creative pop-up card with light-up LEDs.

Presenter: Marie Bjerde, Founder, e-Mergents, LLC, Portland, OR

Portland Young Makers Club is a chapter of the Young Makers’ Club that supports young people ages 8-12 in creating ambitious projects to share at events such as maker faire. The group focuses on high tech/low tech projects such as e-textiles and wearable electronics (sewing circuits and creating circuits on paper). (See: e-mergents.com)

**Workshop #4: Pigments of Your Imagination**
Use egg yolks, oils, soap and water and mix with tempera powders, sands and soils to make paints. Then test them by creating a painting.

Presenter: Elena Baca, Educator, Explora, Albuquerque, NM

Pigments is an ongoing museum program at Explora offered as a pre-registered, 1-hour exploration for 3rd grade – adults and for Home School, Camp and Native Elders outreach programs. Participants question their preconceived notions of what paint is and how it is made. This applied chemistry/art experience uses familiar materials in a new way, testing and observing how they interact with each other, mix or don’t mix, resist or blend and explore color.

**Workshop #5: IDEA Cooperative Challenge**
Work together as a group on a top-secret design challenge using simple materials and no tools. Experience an activity that is used in the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center as an introduction to the design process. The challenge will be followed by a discussion of the design process in informal and formal settings.

Presenter: Dan Haeg, Program Manager, Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN

The NSF-funded IDEA Cooperative (Invention, Design, Engineering, and Art)program engaged underrepresented populations in informal invention, design, engineering, and art activities. The program ran from 2008-2011 with over 130 middle school and high school youth through a partnership between St Paul Public Schools, St Paul College and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

**Workshop #6: LEGO Engineering: Thinking with Your Hands**
Team up to build a simple LEGO bot to solve a simple task. In doing so, you will see the many opportunities to discuss math, science, and engineering with each other (and your students). Listen to some of the solutions of children around the world.

Presenter: Chris Rogers, Department of Engineering Education and Outreach, Tufts University, Medford, MA

LEGO Engineering is a program designed to be part of the school day that is all about rapid prototyping with plastic bricks. Over its 14-year history, LEGO Mindstorms has helped millions of students engineer long before entering college. In particular, participants build robots to demonstrate creativity and innovation and demonstrate how in an engineering class, the ultimate goal is a diverse set of solutions, rather than the answer in the back of the book. (See: tufts.edu/~crogers/)

**Workshop #7: Craft Technology: Polyhedral Modeling with JavaGami**
Create mathematical models in paper using the JavaGami system that illustrates ways in which computers can lend new expressive dimensions to traditional mathematical papercrafting. You will be introduced to JavaGami software to make your models. Discussion will include exciting developments in combining computation, new construction materials, and mathematical crafts.

Presenters: Mike Eisenberg and Ann Eisenberg, Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Boulder, CO

The Craft Technology Lab focuses on the design of expressive, constructive activities for mathematics and science education. It brings together the best features of traditional children's crafts and the affordances of new technologies. The program explores new software applications that enable children to build tangible objects; ways of embedding computers within the materials of children's crafts; and experiments with new fabrication tools, sensors, and display technologies.

**Workshop #8: Click! Agent Training @NYSCI**
Click! Needs your help to stop an intelligence breach at the New York Hall of Science. We need you, our new recruits, to gather data in the Museum’s exhibition spaces. We’ll provide you with a brief training session, but remember, you’ll need to be resourceful and rely on your team’s skills to help us protect one of America’s most important institutions. You’ll be in contact with three STEM professionals, close friends of the Agency, who will deliver your mission messages. Together, we can save the New York Hall of Science so that future generations of secret agents have a laboratory to hone their science skills.

Presenters: Heather Mallak, Emerging Technology Manager; Nina Barbuto, Weekend Programs Manager; and Sandlin Seguin, Scientist in Residence, Girls, Math &Science Partnership (GMSP), Carnegie Science Center, Pittsburgh, PA

A program of Girls, Math & Science Partnership [GMSP] – Click! engages girls, ages 10–14, to solve mysteries and complete covert missions using important science concepts as agents-in-training. Teen girls get a rare opportunity to explore careers in STEM through new media, hands-on experiments, and interactions with professional mentors from esteemed companies and universities.

**Workshop #9: Build a Small Wooden Car**
Build a car as a K-3 student would to explore and illustrate the challenge educators face when using 'hands-on learning" in a classroom setting. Discussion will include age appropriate variations of the project, STEM applications, teachable features, experiences with inclusion, special education classes and how projects are integrated by into the reading, math and art curriculum.

Presenter: Deb Winsor, Owner, ConstructionKids, Inc. 'kids using real tools to build cool stuff', Brooklyn, NY

ConstructionKids teaches building skills to children, parents, and educators. A wide range of projects and programs are offered to schools for classroom installations (build a house, wigwam, or bridge) or individual take-home projects (build a car, a puppet, or a skeleton). It’s about “making” and an integrated K-4 Science/Math curriculum.

**Workshop #10: Making the Future/ Young Makers**
Design and print you own 3-D objects. Use TinkerCAD and 3-D Tin, which are simple, web-based modeling tools that allow beginners to immediately make objects without needing background knowledge in CAD (Computer Aided Design).

Presenter: Jon Santiago, Co-Founder, Managing Director, HTINK, Brooklyn, NY

HTINK's Young Maker programs is a New York City in-school Fab Lab experience where students learn about design and tinkering and focus on 3D printing. They use hand tools plus learn about how the physical world interacts with the virtual world through electronics and physical computing. HTINK is a partner on Cognizant's “Making the Future” initiative to create MakerSpaces and Maker programs.

**Workshop #11: Engineering Design Challenge: Hydraulics**
Engage in a representative in-museum engineering challenge to design, build and test your own working hydraulic system that will lift a weight, operate a crane, or move a dentist chair.

Presenter: Monica Mayer, Science Education Specialist, Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley, CA

The INGENUITY LAB is a museum program where visitors of all ages solve real world engineering design challenges. Visitors work with engineering students to brainstorm ideas, build a prototype, and test their design as they work to find a creative solution to everyday engineering challenges. "Ingenuity in Action" is a floor exhibit based on three of the Ingenuity Lab's most successful challenges (includes hydraulics). (See: @http://lawrencehallofscience.org/)

**Workshop #12: Design Challenges: Miniature Bobsled**
Use the engineering design process to create technologies that solve problems as per the in-class K-5 EiE curriculum, and museum-based activities. Think like an engineer to design, build, test, and redesign a miniature bobsled using very simple materials. Compare and contrast the different goals and criteria for developing activities for a formal classroom vs. an informal museum education space.

Presenter: Melissa Higgins, Program Manager Curriculum Development EiE; Lydia Beall, Design Challenges Program Manager and Tricia DeGiulio Education Associate, Design Challenges, Museum of Science, Boston, MA

Design Challenges is a museum program designed to introduce students (K-6) and visitors to the engineering design cycle. Participants design, build, and test a prototype solution to a given problem in a very short iteration time (20-minute design experience). The program, developed in 2003, has served over 265,000 museum visitors. Activities are mapped to state and national science/engineering standards and educator resource guides are available on the website.

**Workshop #13: Write Your Code/Draw Your Artwork**
Learn simple programming commands in order to control a Super Cricket microprocessor. The Super Cricket will drive a small car with a pen attached. The code that you write will be used to drive your car and draw a variety of patterns.

Presenters: Diana Coluntino, Artistic Director and Adam Norton, Artist Educator, The Revolving Museum, Lowell, MA; Sarah Kuhn, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA

Artbotics is an interdisciplinary class for high school students, college students, and educators. Participants learn founding principles of art, computer science, engineering, and use interactive robotic components to build and program kinetic sculptures.

**Workshop #14: Take It Apart**
Take apart electronics to get a hands-on experience of how this potentially dangerous activity can be facilitated in a way that's safe and sustainable, encouraging visitors to take a constructive approach to destruction.

Presenters: Dana Schloss and Katherine Ziff, Exhibit Developers, Telus SPARK, Calgary, AB

Open Studio is designed to use hands-on making experiences to inspire creativity, problem solving, and collaboration. The exhibition is open to school groups and the general public whenever the science centre is open. Its activities are based on extensive testing conducted at the previous science centre and in the community.