Playful Engineers: Artful Mechanisms
Playful Engineers teaching artist Jay Mankita presents a hands-on, drop-in, low-tech, toy-making workshop. Construct your own 'artful mechanism' using popsicle stick linkages, and paper clip crankshafts. You'll build a basic mechanical structure, overlaying your own design as the output to send a message, tell a story, accomplish a task, or bring a character to life. Your design needs may lead you back to modifications of the your mechanism. We'll make ordinary stuff act in extraordinary ways - great for kids, teens, and adults of all ages. Make a quick project, or stay the whole day!
Maker
Jay Mankita
For 30 years, Jay Mankita worked with kids and families as a touring songwriter, guitarist, performing artist, and workshop leader. In 2012, Jay uncovered a new passion for engineering and making things move, when he and his then 4 year old son Mojo saw a fantastic Rube Goldberg Machine shared by a friend. Jay and Mojo went into the playroom together, and after 11 years, Jay is still in there building and teaching – chain reactions, mechanical automata, and all sorts of artful mechanisms, within a play-based learning framework. Since 2015, Jay has presented over a thousand workshops and events at schools, libraries, camps, and fairs, making things move, and helping grow the next generations of makers. Jay also enjoys being a dad, swimming, hiking, dancing, guitar and piano, ping-pong, tetherball, tahini, chocolate, and sauerkraut, though not all at the same time.