think it. dream it. design it.: August 2007

Objective: The team from the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History join forces with the team from the Children's Museum of Houston to create the Playground for Invention Mindfest.

Time: August 11, 2007

Day One: The interns and their parents meet Gabe and I at the airport ready for another DesignIT exploration. The kids said farewell to their parents and after a very long security check and almost missing the flight... We were on our way to Houston. We rented a car in Houston and headed for some food, than to the museum where we meet Melanie. Melanie gave us a tour of the Children's Museum. We decided to find our hotel to rest but come back later for a dinner meeting with Melanie to discuss the plans for the following day.

Day Two: We came to the museum at 9am to prep for our spaces and give a helping hand to anyone that needed it. The Keva Kapla planks was set up right in front of the Light Painting/Shadow Art room. Gabe and Eddie began setting up the strings in the Light Painting/Shadow art room while Crystal and I made wands and test out the lighting in the room with the camera. As we were setting up the room, Jasmine, Caroline, and David build a Keva plank community with the visitors. Melanie brought over the info cards that tells visitors where to find there pictures on the internet. As we place the Light Painting sign up, guest enter immediately ready to figure out what light painting is about. They received a card and a number, then picked a wand to practice making their pictures. With the help of Lucinda from Discovery Place in Tyler, we had a steady flow until 1 o'clock.

Gabe, Crystal, the interns and I took a lunch and exploration break before heading into the Animation Zone to set up for Stop Motion Animation. Families sign up for 30 minute sessions and there were 5 stations. The kids seem to get the concept of making a movie and they loved walking away with their own personal film. Unfortunately, there was some technical problems with one computer so we were down 1 computer for 2 sessions. This didn't seem to slow the animation makers down. Each family seemed to use ever minute up to the 5 minute warning call. By the end of the day, we had a successful Mindfest with a 97% satisfactory from the survey that was held from that weekend.

Thank you to Melanie Kern for inviting us to help at the Mindfest and for being to hospitable to the Design IT Studios team!