Toy Autopsy: Furby, Glow Dome, Spy Gear!

December 20, 2012 by 1 Comment

As makers, we love getting inside of things to understand how they work and how they’re made. So we were inspired to give YOU an inside peek at three of the hottest toys of the 2012 holiday season! Check out the insides of these awesome electronics with helpful tags by our guest maker expert, Matthew Beckler of HackPittsburgh. And next time one of your toys hopelessly breaks like ours did, remember to peek inside and even reuse some of its parts in your next maker project.

(Psssst! Don’t miss Matt’s notes at the very end, exploring cool similarities inside these toys that look really different on the outside AND even a tip about how “night vision” works.)

Furby 2012

Furby Autopsy

© 2012 Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

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This Is The MAKESHOP Show!

December 19, 2012 by Leave a comment

Learn more about us on our About Page and you can always tell us what you think at info@makeshopshow.com. Keep calm and make on!

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Light Painting

November 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

A light painting by a young maker in the MAKESHOP at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

Yesterday in the MAKESHOP™, makers of all ages had a brilliant time “light painting”, a photographic technique that uses a camera with slow shutter speed to capture images of fast moving lights. With materials you probably have nearby right now, you can have hours of fun experimenting with goofy, dramatic and surprising visual effects!

Below is a slideshow of just a few of the hundreds of light paintings we made yesterday. Send us YOUR favorite at info@makeshopshow.com.

Read on for materials, instructions and inspirations for making your own light paintings!

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Video Tour of Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire 2012

October 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

The basketball-playing robot by the Girls of Steel are one of kid maker Kristin’s top picks at Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire 2012. Photo by Larry Rippel.

The MAKESHOP Show pulls kid makers into the middle of the exciting world of makers, so, of course, our camera crew was right in the middle of Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire!

Kid maker Kristin (who you might remember from our Monkey Cupcakes episode) interviewed the makers she thought had cool projects that YOU would want to see on the Show. She had a tough job, because there were 65 projects to choose from! See what she chose just for you – and what she learned about 3D printing, blacksmithing, robots, race cars and more – in her video tour below.

Click below for Kristin’s Video Tour of Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire 2012 . . .

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Party Pennants

October 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

Party pennants decorating the MAKESHOP

Today is the MAKESHOP’s First Birthday! We’ve made things with 250,000 kids, teens and adults this past year. To celebrate, the MAKESHOP™ team and kid makers decorated the shop with fun party pennants and soon we’ll blow out the candles on a giant, light up robot cake.

Party pennants are a simple sewing project perfect for makers just learning to sew. Click here to download our Party Pennant How To. Here’s our step by step instructions so that YOU can make party pennants for your next bash! . . .

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Electronic Jack-O’-Lantern

October 8, 2012 by Leave a comment

Tech-loving makers around the world are inspired by Halloween to create pumpkins that shoot lasers, flash messages with lights or shoot silly string when someone walks by … all using LED lights, sensors or arduinos. They call them Hack-O’-Lanterns. Roll up your sleeves, clean that cold goop out of your pumpkin and get making.

Click here to learn how make a “hack-o’-lantern” from Instructables.com!

This easy how-to, Tiny LED Jack-O’-Lantern, from Instructables.com is a great start for YOU, kid makers!

  • Maker Zack Scott takes you step by step through the lighting of a pie pumpkin with an LED module. He shares photos for each step. When its done, you have a little jack-o’-lantern that lights up with the flick of switch on the back of the pumpkin!
  • Zack draws his circuit diagram to show you just how the electricity needs to run between the batteries, switch and light. Learning to build a simple circuit like this opens the door for all kinds of other projects. For example, make your Halloween costume light up with the simple circuit in our Light Up Wristband how-to.

Wondering where to find the parts to make your own hack o’lantern?

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T-shirt Bags

September 29, 2012 by Leave a comment

Click here to make this no-sew fringe bag from Tealou and Sweetpea.

On a rainy weekend, nothing is more comfortable  than sitting around at home in your favorite T-shirt and jeans. If you’re like us, kid makers,  you may have a whole collection of clothes that you don’t wear but dont’ want to throw out … especially favorite t-shirts. Whether you outgrew it, it’s stained or it’s just last year’s style, we have the perfect upcycling fix: BAGS!

We all carry a lot of things this time of year, like a book bags for school, grocery bags for apple picking, and of course, trick-or-treat bags for Halloween! Grab your oldest summer tee and start making.

T-shirt Bag Project Ideas:

T-shirt bags are a great example of one of kid-makers favorite types of making: UPCYCLING! What is “upcycling”?

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