Creativity, Innovation, and Design

Our very basic outreach method is the newsletter. The newsletter is to inform current members of happenings and hopefully also get the attention of the social makers and new members,

We are working actively and hard on our progressive curriculum, trying to make it both educational and intriguing. The main point of the curriculum is to keep members motivated and educate them so they can hopefully educate others.

I think the title is apt in that we have struggled to meet/communicate with our community partner. We are still proceeding with our outreach plan of a newsletter, progressive curriculum and workshop menu.

The Star War Event at Lancaster Science Factory Finally, the Start War event came up! After meeting at the library and gathering the materials we need, we headed out to the Science Factory. The event was at 12:30-4:30 PM on Saturday (Nov. 11), and at 12:00-2:30 PM on Sunday (Nov. 12). We set up our materials at the Science Cafe. We positioned the Battlefront Exhibit (Ballista) and It's a Trap (Dreamcatcher) at one side, and Maglev at the opposite end. Rachel Cahill has other back-up materials for us too. So, we also set up Magnetic Pudding. Apparently, the kids enjoyed our exhibits. After two hours, the rubber bands could not stand anymore. They kept breaking; the coins also fell all over the place. As it was challenging to control, we decided to switch to the Pressure Chambers (Bubbles), a backup plan of Rachel. Also, a visitor asked about the China Bowl (the water bowl that sings and dance in response to the given pressure). Thus, we decided to include this exhibit too....

This week we found out that our associate at the North Museum, Becki, was terminated. This was a fairly major setback as we had scheduled a meeting to pitch Becki our ideas from the last few weeks as well as finally get our results back for the survey. We are currently trying to schedule a meeting with Terri who is our new liaison with the museum. In the meantime, we will try to refine our pitch to the North Museum and try to roll with the punches. This was a large blow, so we will have to reevaluate our strategy after our meeting.

Last Friday, we put all of our ideas up on the board and narrowed down our choices to our two best ones: Space Yoga and a Mascot for the North Museum. When we discussed the Museum we realized the problem is not that people do not know about it, it is that people are not excited about it. The value offering has gotten stale. With this in mind, we took a trip to the North Museum's planetarium to scout out the space for Space Yoga.  All of the chairs are moveable and the room is more than big enough for plenty of mats. After our visit, we put a quick pitch together for the event. What is Space Yoga? How does it connect to the Museum and the Lancaster community? Why is it a good idea? What is needed to pull of the event? We also continued to discuss a mascot to spice up the Museum for children. We have not reached a final product but it will most likely be a cartoon T-Rex or a pterodactyl. This week we have prototyped both ideas. Le'an put together a poster for space yoga on P...