Open MAKE: Cardboard

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 was cardboard. Our featured makers were interviewed in the McBean Theater, and you can watch a recording of the presentation and questions by clicking here.

What happened:

• The Cardboard Institute of Technology has been building a large installation in the Tinkering Studio since the beginning of the month. They shared their progress so far, and hosted a cardboard costume building workshop.
• Surfer and laser cutting artist Mike Sheldrake brought some of his amazing surfboards made with a cardboard core.
• Los Angeles artist Ana Serrano talked about the incredibly detailed cityscapes she builds out of cardboard, inspired by real neighborhoods. She also hosted a workshop inviting visitors to make a cardboard building to contribute to a collective art piece.
• Puppeteer Dax Tran-Caffee makes giant articulated puppets out of cardboard (some require as many as 6 people to operate!): he brought some of those, and roamed around the museum all day long.
• Designer Amy Van Nostrand talked about her use of cardboard to build large scale structures, like the 30-foot diameter Buddhist meditation hall she’s brought and assembled at Burning Man since 2006.

And making a special guest appearance, Jason Lentz showed up wearing his giant cardboard robot suit!

This event’s workshops and activities 10 a.m. — 2 p.m., and included:

• Make flying and spinning objects out of cardboard for our Wind Tubes
• Build delightful kinetic sculptures by making Cardboard Automata
• Cardboard costume building with CIT
• Build cardboard houses inspired by your neighborhood with Ana Serrano
• How big can you go? Build a giant structures from stacking cardboard “bloxes”
• And many more cardboard-inspired eccentricities!