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Follow us at the on instagram and twitter @tinkeringstudio all weekend for updates from the booth!

For the first time ever, we are moving our entire booth from the expo hall into an outdoor space and will be experimenting with branching out throughout the faire with mobile exhibits and explainer pop-ups. The rickshaw obscura will be out and about on the grounds, giving people a unique viewpoint on the spectacle of the event.

In addition to piloting the camera obscura bicycle, the explainers will be making clouds and finding north at the outdoor demo station (which happens to be placed right next to a xylophone bicycle made by frequent tinkering studio collaborator Micheal Brown).

In the booth we will be exploring the science of skateboarding in a giant parklet with an ollie practicing stations.

Maker Faire stalwarts like Paul D, Ron, and Julie will be doing demonstrations that work best in the outdoors environment like viewing the sun and checking out reflections of the light made with CDs. There will be demonstrations at the maker bench of Natalie and Paula showing the mathematical properties of spirographs and artifacts from the Bay Lights project.

In a tube-walled workshop space, we’ll also be trying out chalk scribbling machines for the first time. If the weather cooperates we’ll also be attaching solar panels in an attempt to create sustainable drawing mechanisms that could roam the faire on their own until they find an unfortunate patch of shade.

There will also be some interesting talks by and about the Exploratorium happening during the event:

On Saturday from 4:30-5:00, our director Dennis Bartels will be leading a presentation on the Center Stage about the Making of the New Exploratorium with the tagline how do you take a beloved San Francisco institution, dismantle it, build it an entirely new, Net-Zero home, move all of its exhibits–living and otherwise, upgrade it with over 150 new exhibits, and still open on time?
Should be fascinating!

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT – Luigi and I will be part of a conversation with folks from the Tech Museum and Lawrence Hall of Science on Hosting Open Makes at Your Organization from 3:30-4:00 on Saturday at the Education Stage. Come and cheer us on!

We’ll be setting up the booth over the next couple of days and then be ready to roll (pun intended) on Saturday morning). If you are headed down to San Mateo for Maker Faire be sure to come by, check out our booth and say hi!

We had to cut this lady mannequin so she would fit in our Cabinet of Curiosities. Then Nicole made a jig to secure the lady, and now look how the lady was cut on the band saw!

(1) I’ll dub this little video – Diametrically Opposed. It cracks me up each time I watch it. Nicole made these little lovelies as part of some prototyping for Maker Faire (our latest iteration of scribbling machines).

(2) The front entry to the Tinkering Studio isn’t even finished yet, but we have a terrific back gate ready to go. Walter made it. It totally cracks me up too. What should we call it?

Here is the initial sketch from 2011…

Here’s a video of the exhibit in progress a few months before we moved into the piers…

and here’s an image of it when we put it in the Tinkering Studio. Notice that at this point (April 9, 2013) there are ~19,000 turns on the exhibit. Today I noticed there are over 380,000 turns! What number will it be on when you visit the Tinkering Studio!?

After all the planning, prototyping, and experimenting of the last three years, it was so nice to discover that the space we designed and built in the South Gallery worked really well!

Despite the fact that the museum was very busy, the energy in the Tinkering Studio was relaxed and focused, with lots of time and space for visitors to slow down and take their time pursuing their ideas. We are focusing on circuits as a theme for the first few weeks, and so our main activity right now is Scribbling Machines.

The Explainers, for many of whom it was the first day actually working on the floor with real visitors, has no problem immediately applying what they had learned during their training period.

Incredible discoveries were made, and lots of kids (and adults!) spent several hours in the Tinkering Studio, while a whole brand new museum was waiting for their attention outside our walls.

Outside of the “inner circle,” we set up Circuit Boards; thanks to the vast amount of space we have available now, there were lots of opportunities for co-learning and co-discovery.

Wind Table was another huge success, drawing big crowds at time. I am in love with how social the whole experience is compared to Wind Tubes, I think it might be my new favorite tinkering activity…

And of course Scott Weaver came down to “man” his spectacular Rolling Through the Bay toothpick sculpture, which will be on display outside the Tinkering Studio for at least the next two years.

With the addition of our own dedicated Marble Machines building area, and two stop-motion animation stations, that is a total of five tinkering activities are able to offer to the visit public in relative ease, which before would have been a serious strain on our resources. We’ll keep living in the space, experimenting, and changing things around, but it is a great feeling to see years of effort pay off with great results!

Since opening the Tinkering Studio, along with the rest of the museum, a little over a week ago, we have been making Scribbling Machines with the public. As always, you can find a lot of information about this and other activities on our main site, including detailed PDFs that you can download, print, and follow at home. But here’s another option we’ve just started experimenting with: above is a Snapguide on how to build a Scribbling Machine. You can easily enjoy it on your iPad or iPhone as well as on your computer, see videos of tinkering in action, and easily share it on your social media of choice.

If this experiment works, we’ll be making more guides for other activities, so let us know in the comments, either here, or directly on Snapguide!

The mustache is my favorite bit!