The workshop is my absolute favorite place at MOXI. I could spend all day in there and not get tired of being able to work with guests on their project or working on my own. I love that MOXI can provide a space for guests to be able to tinker with things they might not normally get to work with.
One of the things I love about the workshop is when guests get inspired by making something there and then realize it's something they could do with things around their house and then get excited about being able to do more projects at home. I think that having this space to start working on a project and seeing that the thing they wanted to make is possible can inspire guests to keep creating on their own. That happened for me with felting, I learned how to do it in the workshop and then got my own felt and felting needles and started making felt things at home.
I had never really thought about the difference between making and tinkering, but the article pointed out some interesting differences between the two. In the workshop, I think we have a lot of both types of learning. I think that the arcade games activities could fall more under the tinkering category, while leather working falls under the making category. I like that we can have a mix of tinkering and making in the workshop, but I wonder if there is a project we could do that has a mix of both?
I definitely agree with what Angela said about having more Sparks in the workshop on busy days. Sometimes the projects in the workshop don't require much facilitation, but with something like leather working, I tend to work closely with a lot of younger guests back-to-back while having other guests ask me to help them too. I make sure that I don't do the project for the guests, but I usually end up doing something like holding the stamp so the younger guests can hammer it without hitting themselves, giving them a chance to work with tools that would be a bit too dangerous for them to use alone. I really enjoy being able to work closely with guests and seeing what they create, but on crowded days I can't help everyone and sometimes it becomes hard to notice things that could become a safety concern, like a guest leaving out a sharp tools that look like fun to a 2 year old.
Sam wrote about parents directing their kids to a project that seems to be more on the kid's age level, and I see that a lot too. When it is a project with a lot of sharp tools, like leather working, the parents get more apprehensive about letting their kid experiment with the materials, but sometimes they'll ask me about something age appropriate and I try to find a way to help them and their child interact safely with the project. This is when I end up holding the leather stamp for the kid and then they hammer it, or helping them guide the exacto knife. Usually the parents are excited that their kid can still work on the project, even if they think I'm crazy for letting their kid use a hammer so close to my hands, but sometimes there are parents who are entirely resistant to their kid doing something "too old for them". I'm not sure what to do in situations like that except for direct them to something like metal embossing rather than leather working.
To fellow Sparks, do you have any ways you get adult guests to interact with the projects? Most of the time the only adults in the workshop are parents with their children. I think it would be good if we can draw in older guests because once they get in there and sit down at a table, they're likely to start working on something, but most of the time it seems like the older guests think that the workshop only has projects for children.
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