One of the first things you will notice as you come into the South Gallery, where the Tinkering Studio is located, is Tim Hunkin’s mechanical clock. Don’t miss its spectacular show, which it will perform every hour on the hour.

Make your way to the Tinkering Studio and take a peek inside the Cabinets of Curiosities covering its walls; they are stuffed with tools, art pieces, oddities, failed experiments, past inspirations, and delightful objects of tinkering.

As you peer through the glass you’ll be able to get a glimpse of the activities going on inside the Tinkering Studio, but you’ll have to wind your way around to the entrance.

Along the way you might be compelled to stop and play with Norman Tuck’s new piece, Your Turn Counts, which will do exactly that in increasingly modern technology as the orders of magnitude grow!

Or you might jump right into the area we built which is entirely dedicated to Marble Machines, and build ball runs on an epic scale.

We’ve poured our heart and soul into making a great environment for you to slow down, have a seat, and make something with your hands. We look forward to playing with you!

The Tinkering Studio was there with a truck equipped to do Light Painting. These are visitors’ creations during the event, in two chunks:

Below you will find a slideshow of all the photos made at the Mission location, between 10 AM and 4 PM. You can also click here to browse thumbnails and search for your specific artwork.

And here you will find a slideshow of all the photos made at the Embarcadero location, between 5 PM and 10 PM. You can also click here to browse thumbnails and search for your specific artwork.

Artist’s Website

Together with Tre Borden, a childhood friend, Danny founded the company Tapigami to bring his artistic vision and innovative techniques to a wider audience. Recently, Tapigami creations were highlighted in an episode of KVIE Public Television’s Rob on the Road and an installation from Maker Faire Bay Area was featured in Wired magazine. Danny has also shown installation pieces at the W Hotel in San Francisco, the San Francisco City Hall and participated in multiple events at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum. Danny recently debuted his first solo-museum show at the California Museum in Sacramento, CA entitled, “California Creates: Tapigami” running through October 21st, and was also highlighted in a feature article in the Sacramento Bee.

Danny is very excited to be bringing his unique art form to the Exploratorium!

Artist’s page

A collaboration between the Exploratorium, MAKE Magazine, and Pixar Animation Studios, Open MAKE is a monthly program highlighting the tools, techniques, and ingenuity of local Makers. Visitors are invited to participate in tinkering and making activities inside the Tinkering Studio, where Makers from around the Bay Area will share their work. In addition, Dale Dougherty, founder and editor of MAKE Magazine, will interview Featured Makers in the McBean Theater.

This month’s theme will be trash. Five Featured Makers will be interviewed in the McBean Theater between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., talking about their work and process, and taking questions from the audience. The interview will also be webcast live! Please go to bit.ly/openmaketrash to watch.

Our Featured Makers are:

• Sudhu Tewari, who likes to make sounds with all kinds of materials, and was recently artist in residence at the San Francisco Dump.
• Cathy McEver, a local artist creating all kinds of stuff from found objects.
• Jeremy Mayer, who assembles stunning sculptures entirely made from typewriter parts.
• Paul Spooner, automatist extraordinarie, whose humorous and quirky kinetic sculptures are a delight.
• Nemo Gould who also uses found objects to create work that evokes a sense of childlike wonder.

Special Guest: Caine’s Cardboard Arcade!
Caine is a very awesome 9 year old boy who built an entire arcade out of cardboard in his dad’s auto parts shop. If you are not familiar with his story, watch this video! You won’t regret it…
Caine is coming to San Francisco for Open MAKE, and will be bringing his whole arcade! We’ll install the arcade in the Tinkering Studio, and he will be on hand to run the arcade and sell fun passes (it’s an awesome deal!). Caine will also make a special appearance at the Meet the Makers interviews at 1pm in the McBean Theater. He will be back at 3pm along with Nirvan, the filmmaker who made the documentary linked above, for the film screening organized by the Cinema Arts Program.

Scheduled Workshops

Swap-O-Rama-Rama!

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Come participate in a giant clothing swap where you get to re-make, re-use, and re-purpose yours or somebody else’s clothes! Instead of throwing them away or selling them to a thrift store, why don’t you bring your old (but CLEAN, please!) clothes to the Exploratorium and add them to the giant pile of garments we will be building? Then pick something that you want to alter in some way, and with the help of the fantastic Swap-O-Rama-Rama staff, we’ll help you bring your idea to life. We’ll have sewing machines, cutting stations, and a number of quick and awesome projects for you to do.

Trashion Show!

3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. in the Skylight area

What happens to old t-shirts, stained jeans, and tacky prom dresses? Local designers become inspired by these materials that would otherwise end up in the trash and craft them up into something new. Check out Loose Thread, Miss Velvet Cream, and Camp Couture at the Trashion Show, produced by Artiffact. Are you an inspiring designer as well? Spend a little time at the Swap-O-Rama-Rama digging through the swap piles, sewing on the machines, and printing at the silkscreen stations and you can show off what you made too!

Slash Revival — with Eva Inez Heule

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Cut, Slash, Wear and go, or choose to re-weave old garments into completely new works of art!
Cotton jersey-knit or stretch fabrics work best for this demo.

T-Shirt Transplants — with Andrea Nemerson

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Love the image, hate the garment? Andrea Nemerson shows you how to to perform a graphics transplant and other one-of-a-kind embellishments. Bring your own t-shirt that you want to modify: great for outgrown kid’s shirts!

Jeans [or any pants] Into Tote — with Scatha G Allison

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Remake a pair of unwanted jeans, pants, or shorts into a quick and easy tote bag with Scatha Allison. Use your new bag for shopping, crafts, the beach, moonlight picnics, or for everyday. The project is simple but with options for customizations, detailing and pockets! Bring your old jeans!

Fresh Prints: Live screen-printing — with Homeygrown

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Don’t toss that stained t-shirt! Give it a second chance with a fresh print from Homeygrown. Choose a shirt from the swap piles, or bring in an old favorite, and they’ll silkscreen a design of your choice to turn your old duds into something new-to-you.

Super Hero Capes

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Up, up and away! Transform a button-down shirt into an easy super hero cape with Jessica Martinez. This no-sew cape is perfect for superheroes of all ages! Bring your own button down shirts and embellishments!

Plastic coral reel building — with Angela Pozzi of Washed Ashore

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Come participate in a large scale coral reel building using pieces of plastic that have been salvaged from Oregon beaches. Angela turns plastic scrap and bits of trash that end up on beaches into wonderful large scale collaborative sculptures: come add your piece to a coral reef that will slowly take shape in the Tinkering Studio every day from Wednesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All ages and skill levels are welcome!
Also on display, right outside the Tinkering Studio, will be Lidia the Seal, a large sculpture by Angela, made mostly with discarded plastic lids (hence the name…)

Contact microphone building — with Sudhu Tewari

10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Do you ever wonder if there are sounds you can’t hear? Well, there are! Some sounds are too quiet to be picked up by human ears and so go unnoticed. Sudhu Tewari wants to share these sounds with you. He builds electronic devices and musical instruments that help us hear (and see) these special sounds.
Sudhu will give a demonstration of contact microphone building and show you how to make your own with components salvaged from discarded electronic devices. Come experience the most musical colander you’ve ever heard and see the sound on a vintage Wobble vision! All constructed from other people trash!

Kinetic Sound Devices — with Pe Lang

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Pe Lang is a sound artist based in Zurich and Berlin. His work includes sound installations, live performances and compositions based on elegant and minimal kinetic systems, combined with different devices created by himself, which are used as sound sources. He prefers to experiment and build his artworks with inexpensive motors, small magnets, and the raw materials of bare wire, plastic tubing, metal plate and ball bearings, to allow viewers and listeners to appreciate the delicate and unpredictable movements and sound.
He will show some of the simple materials and construction methods he uses, including industrial surplus magnets, parts, and fasteners.
Special thanks to Swissnex San Francisco for their support in bringing Pe Lang to the Exploratorium

SCRAPPY Trash Puppets!

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Visit the SCRAP table and use fabric, buttons and toys discarded by local businesses to create a Trash Puppet. Come with a character in mind or make one that looks like you! We’ll attach a pencil to the puppet’s arm so you can make your puppet come to life.

These days Cathy spends weekends dumpster-diving in deserted back alleys of industrial districts in Oakland and long afternoons wandering for miles down stretches of railroad tracks scavenging for strangely perfect scraps of rust or interesting, oddly twisted bits of metal. Regular visits to flea markets and salvage yards flush out her working materials.

Cathy’s artwork includes assemblage, textile art, installation/interactive pieces and fashioning things out of unlikely materials. Lately she’s been engaged in creating objects that are fleeting in nature and photographing them.

Artist’s Website

Cathy’s interview at Open MAKE Trash

In 1974, Paul moved to Stithians, Cornwall. He made weaving looms for his wife Sue, but mainly worked as a van driver. It wasn’t until 1981 that he made his first edition of automata featuring the Egyptian Jackal-headed God, Anubis. For the next two years he made small machines usually sold in limited editions through Cabaret in Falmouth. In 1983 Cabaret became a Mechanical Theatre and between 1985 and 2000 it was located in Covent Garden, London, with over 40 of Paul’s machines in the collection. The exhibits now tour around the world.

Paul Spooner’s work combines humour with delightful and intriguing mechanisms.

“My work as an artist / mechanic amounts to a constant pursuit of elegance and simplicity. I haven’t caught up with either yet because I don’t know how to finish things. Except sometimes. And even then I’m not sure.”

Artist’s Website

Paul’s interview at Open MAKE Trash

Jeremy lives and works in Oakland, CA.

Artist’s Website

Jeremy’s interview at Open MAKE Trash