I took the family to Discovery World over the weekend and we checked out the Design It! Lab where we built laser-cut cardboard houses. (Well, the kids and I built houses, Dr. Dana made a snowflake ring.)
I was a little disappointed there wasn’t as much “designing” and “making” as I thought there would be. We were handed a piece of laser-cut cardboard (with no instructions) and were tasked with putting it together by folding it along the score lines, and inserting tabs. I was hoping for a bit more… I wanted to use a laser-cutter, or at least see one in operation. It sounded like if you sign up for classes, you get to do a bit more hands-on things like that. Maybe the kids and I are just so used to making things that this seemed fairly simple to us. For first-time makers, maybe this is a good starting point.
On the bright side, I did drop the names of some people I know who work there, and the Design It! Lab guy brought out the Makerbot for me to see. It’s not quite up and running yet, but should be soon.
(If you’re interested, I’ve written up a review of our Discovery World experience over at Yelp.)