How People Make Things
Created by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Family Communications, Inc. (FCI), the producer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE).
Ever wonder how a box becomes a box? Or how a sneaker becomes a sneaker? Chances are your child has. At How People Make Things kids learn firsthand about tools and processes used to make everyday objects. It’s just one more way we inspire children to think outside the box.
Every object in our world has a story of how it is made. How People Make Things, a new exhibit opening at The Science Zone on September 27th, tells that story by linking familiar childhood objects to a process of manufacturing that combines people, ideas and technology.
How People Make Things, inspired by the factory tour segments from the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood television series, offers hands-on activities using real factory tools and machines to create objects with four manufacturing processes - molding, cutting, deforming and assembly. Many common manufactured products help tell the story of how people, ideas and technology transform raw materials into finished products.
How People Make Things offers hands-on activities using real factory tools and machines to create objects using four manufacturing processes – molding, cutting, deforming, and assembly. Visitors can use a die cutter to make a box and a horse, cut wax using different sculpting tools, deform a wire by taking a straight wire into a spring shape by winding it around the metal shaft, mold spoons using real melted wax, assemble a trolley and test your skills on the testing track.
“This exhibit brings children close to the real stuff, the nuts and bolts of how products are manufactured, which is very easy to feel removed from these days,” says Jane Werner, Executive Director of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
“Through his factory tours, Fred Rogers took complex issues and made them simple and direct so children could understand them and relate them to their own lives. He made manufacturing fascinating and inspirational, and we continue that tradition with How People Make Things.”
The factory tour videos from the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood television series featured in the exhibit depict the making of crayons, carousel horses, balls, stop lights, quarters, shoes, toy cars and toy wagons.
How People Make Things was created by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Family Communications, Inc. (FCI), the producer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE). The exhibit was made possible with support from the National Science Foundation and The Grable Foundation.
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