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The Tinkering Studio is located inside the Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception. Location & Directions
Hours & Admissions
Featured Artist
Stijn Schiffeleers »
Working in many media, Stijn, member of the Futurefarmers artist collective, reveals the subtleties of life via works on paper, video, and interactive installations. His artwork embodies a sense of play and sensitivity that reminds us to take a closer look at what surrounds us. He is the co-founder of Boutique Vizque, a platform for media-based explorations resulting in various tangible installations, including Babble, Dustbunnies, and Modus Motus. Stijn lives and works in the Bay Area, but still has a…
Artists Archive
Adam Tobin »
When he was five or six years old, Adam discovered masking tape. Realizing that there was nothing in this world…
Adrian Freed »
Adrian Freed is Research Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and he leads the…
Alice Wingwall »
When noted photographer and sculptor Alice Wingwall began losing her sight, she became determined to continue making visual art. Now…
Amy Van Nostrand »
Amy Van Nostrand is a designer who makes large scale structures from cardboard. She is interested in temporary and mobile…
Ana Serrano »
Born in Los Angeles in 1983, Ana Serrano uses cardboard to create work that elevates cardboard from a throw-away material…
Andrew Lyndon »
Andrew is an Oakland-based videographer, animator, and filmmaker who makes stand-alone video, freelance multimedia work, video theater sets, and narrative…
Ann Weber »
California artist Ann Weber transforms the ordinary medium of cardboard into impressive large-scale sculptures reminiscent of pods, gourds, and organic…
Asia Ward »
Asia Ward is a Program Specialist and Artist in Residence for the Learning Technologies Center at the Science Museum of…
Benjamin Cowden »
Benjamin Cowden began working with metal during an undergraduate anthropology project in Cameroon in 1997, where he studied how Baka…
Bernie Lubell »
Bernie creates interactive sculptural installations based on his studies in psychology and engineering. His projects have included a stone-age digital…
Bernie Zubrowski »
Bernie is a Senior Scientist for Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), who has spent much of his professional life devising…
Brad Prather »
Brad Prather is a folk artist and contraption-maker from Petaluma California. Brad has been collecting and constructing solar-powered electric whirligigs…
Cardboard Institute of Technology »
The Cardboard Institute of Technology (C.I.T.) will engage the Exploratorium with a month long, ever expanding environment made almost entirely…
Carlos Zapata »
Carlos is a self-taught artist who has found unique ways of expressing himself through painting, drawing, and making things. In…
Cathy McEver »
Cathy McEver lives in Oakland, California, a city that exemplifies the promise inherent in the international urban village of tomorrow.…
Charles Sowers »
Charles is an artist and exhibit developer at the Exploratorium who has been making thought-provoking, beautiful and sometimes whimsical experiences…
Chris Bell »
Chris was born in Sydney, Australia in 1966. Two years study in Industrial design was followed by his Bachelor of…
Danny Scheible »
First attracted to masking tape because of its versatile, accessible, and malleable nature, Danny Scheible used the unlikely material to…
David Cole »
David loves anything that comes in a fitted, wooden box. He collects machines to inspire his artwork and feed his…
David Forbes »
David Forbes is a mostly self-taught electrical engineer. He has been working in electronics all his life, since the age…
Dax Tran-Caffee »
Originally trained as a painter, but having bounced around in every discipline from music to movement, Dax Tran-Caffee stumbled into…
Douglas Repetto »
Douglas is an artist and teacher. His work, including sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software is presented internationally. He is…
Elizabeth Falkner »
Besides running restaurants, Elizabeth Falkner loves culinary competition as a sport and is one of the most recognizable chefs in…
emiko oye & Shana Astrachan »
emiko oye and Shana Astrachan are professional jewelry artists working with alternative/repurposed materials, encouraging others to experience the beauty of…
Evil Mad Scientist »
EvilMadScientist are Windell and Lenore.
Windell H. Oskay owns only one slide rule, but plans to acquire more. A published…
Five Ton Crane »
The Five Ton Crane Arts Group is a full service design / build / consulting organization with an expanding track…
Ge Wang »
An Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Ge Wang is…
Grace Kim »
Grace Kim is a San Francisco based wearable technology designer.
I-Wei Huang »
With over a decade of game industry experience, I-Wei Huang is currently the Toy and Character Director at Toys for…
Jason “Jay” Broemmel »
Jay is a metal fabricator who builds mutant bicycles. A native of the Central Valley town of Reedley, he moved…
Jeremy Mayer »
Jeremy Mayer disassembles typewriters of all vintages then reassembles the components into mostly life-scale human and animal forms. No wiring,…
Jessica Hobbs »
People have often described Jessica Hobbs as someone trying to lead a compulsively artistic life, which is more or less…
Jie Qi »
Jie loves to make things that blend paper craft and personal expression with programming and electronics — like pop-up books…
Judy Castro »
Judy is an artist and designer working with textiles, metal, industrial materials and electronics. She is a seamstress by family…
Julie Chen »
Julie Chen is an internationally known book artist who has been publishing limited edition artists’ books under the Flying Fish…
Keith Newstead »
Keith studied at Barking College of Art and Technology. After short-lived careers on a paper round in Finland and as…
Ken Murphy »
Ken Murphy is a musician, tinkerer, and jack of all trades. He mentored a robotics club at a school and…
Krys Bobrowski »
Krys Bobrowski is a sound artist and musician.
In addition to concert works, she has created interactive installations and designed…
Lanny Smoot »
During his early career, Lanny held leadership positions in communications research at Telcordia and Bell Labs. He later moved on…
Leah Buechley »
Leah is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she directs the High-Low Tech research group. The High-Low…
Leigh Ann Langwell »
Leigh Anne is a visual artist who uses the interplay of light and shadow to explore connections between micro and…
Marek Michalowski »
Dr. Marek Michalowski is a roboticist working at the intersection of engineering, design, and psychology. He is president and co-founder…
Matmos »
Matmos is M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, aided and abetted by many others. In their recordings and live performances over…
Michael Brown »
Michael Brown is a sculptor, designer and installation artist who has been creating artwork in San Francisco for more than…
Michael Shiloh »
Michael Shiloh has a BSc in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and worked for many years designing consumer and industrial…
Michael Swaine »
Michael Swaine is an inventor and designer working in many media. He has collaborated with artist collective Futurefarmers since 1997,…
Mike Sheldrake »
Mike makes righteous surfboards out of cardboard.
Moxie »
Moxie is an artist, fiber pusher, and human being. She enjoys conceptual art, hi-jinx and/or shenanigans, and making wool do…
Nathan Sawaya »
Nathan Sawaya is a New York-based artist who creates awe-inspiring works out of some of the most unlikely things. His…
Ned Kahn »
Ned Kahn, an artist who has a background in environmental science, explores natural phenomena through his art. His works typically…
Nemo Gould »
Nemo Gould was born to artist parents in 1975, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Named after the protagonist in Windsor McKay’s comic…
Nicole Catrett »
Nicole is an exhibit developer for the Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio. She might be found sewing, or welding, or making a…
Norman Tuck »
As a child, Norman loved building things, especially airplane models made of balsa and tissue paper. At 16, he began…
OpenROV »
OpenROV is a DIY telerobotics community project centered around underwater exploration & adventure. It is the brainchild of David Lang…
Paul Nosa »
Paul Nosa draws a lot. Creating a line is a balance between intention and recognizing the possibilities in the moment;…
Paul Spooner »
Paul Spooner was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1948. He had mechanical interests from an early age. In 1964 he…
Roger Wood »
Roger Wood is a self-taught artist who lives and works in a former flower shop in Hamilton, Ontario. A yard…
Saul Griffith »
Saul Griffith is the Founder / Principal Scientist at Other Lab, where he focuses his work on engineering solutions for…
Scott Weaver »
Scott Weaver’s family has lived in San Francisco for 3 generations. Scott started building toothpick sculptures in 1968, when he…
Shawn Lani »
Shawn Lani is a senior artist at the Exploratorium. Most recently, Shawn worked as lead developer for the Outdoor Exploratorium,…
Shih Chieh Huang »
Taiwanese-born Shih Chieh (“Cj”) Huang’s work focuses on exploring the unusual evolutionary adaptations undertaken by creatures that reside in inhospitable…
Stijn Schiffeleers »
Working in many media, Stijn, member of the Futurefarmers artist collective, reveals the subtleties of life via works on paper,…
Sudhu Tewari »
Sudhu Tewari has been called a professional bricoleur, junkyard maven and young audio-gadgeteer. An early interest in disassembling alarm clocks and…
Tim Hunkin »
Tim trained as an engineer, but then became a cartoonist, drawing the Rudiments of Wisdom for the Observer newspaper for…
Virginia Fleck »
Virginia Fleck was born in New York City. She began making artwork in childhood and eventually studied at Portland School…
Walter Kitundu »
Walter Kitundu is a visual artist, instrument builder, photographer, and composer. He works in the Learning Studio as a Multimedia…
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