Museum celebrates tinkering, award

Mid-America Science Museum hosted its Fourth Annual Tinkerfest on Saturday, attracting more than 1,000 guests to the 52 tinkering stations and food trucks inside and outside the building.

Museum Executive Director Diane LaFollette describes Tinkerfest as the museum's "mission in action," offering families and curious individuals the opportunity to create and experiment with new tools and ideas during this family centered event.

Fifty-two tinkering stations related to science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics were set up within the 65,000 square feet of the museum, including a BMX bike take-apart station and demonstration outside of the museum and a three-dimensional printer farm in the tinkering studio. The 3-D printer farm featured 10-15 3-D printers connected to computers and laptops, allowing guests to experiment with 3-D printing for the first time.

"It gives everybody something," LaFollette said. "Not everybody is going to be interested in every single booth, every table, every activity, so there's always something for everyone, no matter what your interest is."

LaFollette added that tinkering teaches children to fail -- which isn't always a bad thing. The process of trying something, seeing if it works, asking yourself questions and improving upon your design is an important part of learning and can be applied anywhere, not just to science, she said.

Mid-America Science Museum was awarded the 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Services at the White House on June 1, and a celebratory reception was held at the museum on Friday.

"Only three of us were able to go out to D.C., so we wanted to celebrate back here in Hot Springs," LaFollette said.

The museum was nominated for the award by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4. Westerman, U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., and museum board of directors Chairman Brian Gehrki spoke during the reception.

The museum's director of education, Doug Herbert, executed a science demonstration on the three laws of Isaac Newton following the speeches. Other fun activities and displays were set out on tables to entertain guests, including frozen Champagne (Champagne frozen with liquid nitrogen), 3-D printing and cubelet robots.

"Some community members came out and we had a nice crowd," LaFollette said. "We had some of the board members here and it was all just an opportunity for us to enjoy the moment and feel good about winning the award."

Local on 06/22/2016

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