Tinkering: all Summer at the Exploratorium

TINKERING: all summer at the Exploratorium

Chain Reaction 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Also on Sat 7/31
A chain reaction is an interrelated series of contraptions that trigger one another to create a sequence of movement. In this daylong workshop, visitors will use ingenuity, drama, and the Exploratorium machine shop to create a collective chain reaction. Work with exhibit developers on your unique contribution to the process, and take home and tinker with your creation!

Participants must be 18 or over. Prior registration required. Call (415)561-0308 for reservations. No experience necessary—just an urge to tinker! Materials and tools will be provided.

Physics of Toys: The Circuit Circus!
12 noon-4 p.m.
Get charged as we explore the properties of electricity and magnetism. Make a motor, a string-light circuit that lights up, static balloons, and jumping magnets. Take home what you make!

	Chain Reaction: The Way Things Go 2 p.m.
The Way Things Go (1986-87, 30 min.), by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, sets in motion a series of Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions created from objects including garbage bags, styrofoam cups, a tea kettle, and wooden blocks.

Marble Machines 12 noon-4 p.m.
Also on Sun 8/8
Reconnect with marbles in a whole new way! Design and build kinetic contraptions inspired by Rube Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning inventor and cartoonist best known for designing intricate chain reactions that accomplish very simple tasks. Send marbles along an interconnected obstacle course of jumps, bumps, and turns. Participants will construct and test their designs, then leave them behind for others to test, take apart, and rebuild. Use all types of materials, including funnels, tubes, planks, propellers, and pins.

	Kinetic Film 2 p.m.
Revenge of the Kinematograph Cameraman (1912, 10 min.), by Ladislas Starewicz, is an early animated film featuring insects with human characteristics; it explores the philandering of Mr. and Mrs. Beetle—he with a dragonfly, she with a grasshopper.

Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928, 7 min.), by Hans Richter, is an early experimental film in which clocks, legs, ladders, hats, and people undergo irrational transformations in unusual settings.
Wire Works (1992, 5 min.), by Michael Rudnick, documents some of Rudnick's 3-dimensional wire artworks depicting human fables.
Things I'd Say if I Were Pope (1993, 5 min.), by Marion Wallace and Michael Rudnick, brings a pinscreen to life in a stream-of-consciousness style in homage to Dean Snider, an artist and friend who died early in life.
Museo Mechanique (2003, 5 min.), by John Reily, is an interweaving of images of mechanical toys with close-up images of Exploratorium exhibits, exploring the whimsical connection between two playful sites.

Note: All films will screen in the Exploratorium's McBean Theater unless otherwise noted.