What: The Bay Area Discovery Museum is launching the world’s first early learning Fab Lab during the Museum’s final installment of its STEM Superhero Series festival, titled “Code Our Future: Super Solving with Robots.” The Fab Lab is a maker space with digital fabrication technology such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and vinyl cutters. The Fab Lab exhibition will allow children to intentionally build science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills through hands-on learning. The Museum will be the first to pioneer meaningful use of such technologies with the youngest learners: children ages 3-10.
Why: The early learning Fab Lab will provide children (ages 3 –10) with the core skills to be successful in a rapidly changing world. According to the MacArthur Foundation, 65% of today’s children will have jobs that do not yet exist. The Fab Lab will be a crucial gateway to STEM proficiency by enabling children to navigate the design process from concept to production and turn their ideas into reality. In addition, the work in the Museum’s Fab Lab will be the foundation for an international, scalable model that will be replicated through the global learning networks of the Fab Foundation and Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES).
Who: The Fab Lab will officially open to the public on Saturday, May 14, with a laser ribbon cutting ceremony and short remarks from CEO Karyn Flynn, to start at 10 a.m. Kids will be invited to help open the Fab Lab doors by solving a code. Families and children are invited to participate in hands-on learning in the Fab Lab, as well as an array of STEM activities as part of the STEM Superhero Series festival, titled “Code Our Future: Super Solving with Robots.”
When: The Fab Lab laser ribbon cutting ceremony is at 10 a.m. Between 9 – 10 a.m., young visitors will receive a wooden key with a special code on it, and instructed to go to the Fab Lab doors at 10 a.m. to help solve the code to open the Fab Lab. Once the code has been solved, the ribbon will be cut (with 3D printed scissors!), and the Fab Lab will officially open. The Fab Lab will be open from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: The Fab Lab grand opening, and STEM Superhero Series event, will take place at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds Road Sausalito, CA 94965.
About the Bay Area Discovery Museum
The Bay Area Discovery Museum has been at the forefront of early education for 25 years, welcoming millions of children, parents, and teachers to its iconic site at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge on 7.5 acres of National Park land in Sausalito, CA. As an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Museum’s mission is to ignite and advance creative thinking for all children. The Bay Area Discovery Museum is the only museum in the United States that combines a research division, a laboratory preschool, and comprehensive programming at the intersection of creativity development and STEM. www.BayKidsMuseum.org.