#weinvent

The Ingenuity Lab moved to the Design Quest exhibit for the summer offering daily programming from 10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. We kicked off our summer program with fun engineering design activities to explore Circuitry. Create simple and complex circuits with our new set of circuit blocks. Turn on a light or a buzzer, make a toy spin, or challenge yourself by connecting a switch or a potentiometer to your circuit. 

Design, build, and test Jitterbots using motors, batteries, wires, weights and other familiar materials. Set your motorized machine off to go and observe as it leaves traces on the paper. Adjust your components to create different designs. 

We hope to see you in the Ingenuity Lab this summer.

This fall we have been focusing on building simple cardboard automata with visitors in the Ingenuity Lab. Automata are fascinating mechanical sculptures: when you turn a handle on the side, an object on the top moves in a certain way. Designing automata is an activity that integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Over the past two months we have seen hundreds of fun, whimsical machines from simple to more complex come to life that often tell fascinating imaginative stories.

The Design Process Visitors drew inspiration from sample designs that showcased different motions. We reminded them to keep it simple and make it interesting. We used accessible materials like cardboard boxes, skewers sticks, and foam circles to make the automata mechanics, as well as cheap consumables and recyclables to create interesting objects for the top. Hot glue guns were used to glue things in place. Visitors worked with a partner to choose and motion and design, built, and test their automata in an iterative process. Making automata is not easy, it takes patience and perseverance, but it is a very rewarding experience once you get it to work. Check out the amazing designs on our Flickr Gallery.

As part of our ASTC Community of Practice (CoP) on Making & Tinkering Spaces in Museums, we're hosting a hangout that highlights the Ingenuity Programs and TechHive at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Thursday, October 2nd at 11PST staff at the Hall will give us a tour of three different maker/tinkering spaces and talk about how those programs have evolved over the past 5 years.

The Ingenuity Lab:  a drop-in lab for visitors of all ages offering rotating engineering design challenges. 

Design Quest: a new 5.000 sq ft exhibit designed and built at the Hall-featuring interactive learning experiences to engage visitors in the design process. 

The TechHive: a new studio space and teen internship program focused on digital media authorship, design, and digital tool development.

Hope to see you Thursday! ~ October 2nd at 11PST ~ To register for the session, go to this URL - https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/871832087 

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