ScienceWorks TinkerFest Preview at Grants Pass Growers Market

Visitors to the Grants Pass Growers Market this Saturday, March 21, will get a sneak peek at ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum?s TinkerFest taking place May 16th and 17th at the museum in Ashland. TinkerFest is a collaboration of the many innovators, inventors and out-of-the-box-creative thinkers in Southern Oregon. The event brings technology together with craftspeople, educators, families, and artists from throughout Southern Oregon and Northern California to play for an entire weekend: taking things apart, building and experimenting with new, sometimes zany, ideas. Joining ScienceWorks at the market will be Grants Pass? own Rebel Bricks with thousands of LEGOs on hand for creative building. Visitors will also have a chance to create their own scribble bots ? a crazy combination of up-cycling plastic berry boxes and technology that make art ? and construct elaborate marble ramps to test their engineering skills. ?We look forward to partner with Rebel Bricks again,? ScienceWorks executive director Chip Lindsey said. ?Their store exemplifies the creative spirit of TinkerFest.? TinkerFest began at ScienceWorks in 2013, as a regional celebration of innovation and playful invention. Initially funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the City of Ashland and inspired by MakerFaire and the MIT Media Lab?s Mindfest, TinkerFest brings together science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEM and STEAM) education with fun, hands-on opportunities to play with ideas and materials. The festival has grown, and this year ScienceWorks will be hosting regional preview events at the Children?s Learning Fair in Klamath Falls on April 18th and at Art in Bloom in Medford on May 9th, in addition to the Grants Pass event. The main TinkerFest event at ScienceWorks opens at 10am on Saturday, May 16th and runs through 5 pm on Sunday, May 17th. The weekend will include the Car Take-Apart, sponsored by Ashland Automotive, on both Saturday and Sunday. Back by popular demand, the car take-apart puts screwdrivers and wrenches in the hands of the young and old to help dismantle and discover the inner-workings of an automobile. Other tinkering activities will include wire sculpting with students from Armadillo Tech Institute, art with SOU?s Printmaking Club, activities with Rogue Hack Lab, flower pressing, blacksmithing, wood carving demonstrations, needle felting, and much more. TinkerFest admission is $7 for members and $12 for non-members, with weekend pass rates available. For more information and a complete listing of all festival offerings go to TinkerFest.org, or call ScienceWorks at (541) 482-6767.