Families tackle engineering challenges together at The Works Museum
On October 13th, The Works Museum hosted it’s first ever Family Hack-a-Thon Challenge in partnership with Twin Cities Start-Up Week and Shattuck-St. Mary’s School. The Hack-a-Thon gave families a chance to work together and use their ingenuity and creativity to solve an engineering challenge. With only three hours to work, each team created a tool or invention designed to “help someone complete a task.”
After an introduction, which featured a presentation from graduate students from the University of Minnesota Biomedical Engineering Department, the inspired teams set to work. They sketched ideas and discussed possibilities with their teammates and used a variety of everyday objects and materials to construct a prototype of their invention. Adjustments, improvements, (and a stretch break) followed until it was finally time to put down the glue guns. As a finale to the event, each team presented their creations to the other participants, shared their perspectives about the process, and answered questions from other teams.
Thank you to all the participants, volunteers, and especially Shattuck-St. Mary’s School, who helped make this day possible!
