I. Pablo’s Bugs -
Sue/Sarah - Pablo’s activity with the bugs and motors was fantastic, can’t wait to get back and try out that idea some more.

Molly — excited by Pablo’s bugs because they could use lots and lots of them in their new "regulation robotic soccer field" when soccer isn’t going on.

Amanda - Staging Pablo’s activity towards the end of the day was a really good call. It was less crowded and a little easier to manage. Saw lots of people proudly carrying their bugs around and testing them out around the museum.

Karen - Pablo made an adjustment to the activity mid-way through that worked well. Splitting off to a smaller table for "creating the bones" of the bug, (which was the complicated part ). This table was more structured and allowed him to start a new group every ten minutes. On a separate larger table people were able to spend time decorating and testing them out, spending as much time there as they wanted to.

The Rotunda pulsed with activity more this year. There were things that attracted lots of people for a period of time and then they dispersed into the exhibits. Wasn’t so clogged up all the time.

Liz’s discussions she had with people were great, whole families stayed and watched the series and a few watched things more than once.

Ft Worth floor staffer - Nice to include something so weird.

People really spent a lot of time there.

Good to incorporate adults working on things playfully and passionately, and don’t always have to be things where people are building something. Liz’s films and Joe’s work are good examples of that.

IV. Jessie’s boxes -
Sue: Really enjoyed seeing different dimensions of an idea. Jessie using plastic was a new twist that could be interesting to consider. Expense of parts is something they’ve had problems with for years.

Cool to have an artist work included.

Charlie — this activity appealed to so many different ages levels, there was constant activity there throughout the day.

Ft Worth volunteer — heard lots of people saying they’d never think of doing this with K’nex, but that they were going to try at home.

Karen — It started out more complex (with whirligigs and crickets) but we pulled those because it got really crowded and we needed to go set up other areas. Could have used another fan and more parts for building.

VII. Spirograph -

Molly: Microworlds is a little more accessible, offering downloadable programs to try online as well as less expensive versions available.

Molly - This year there was more time to see what others were doing — really liked that.

Ft Worth floor staff (3) - liked having the opportunity to do this because it allowed them to relate the activities they were doing individually, to other things happening around the museum.

Lots of folks from playshops attended the event (even some that we recognized from MindFest last year).

Pablo — Noticed that the amount of time people stayed at the activities was extremely high, something that doesn’t happen very often at our museum. This was great to see.

Chip confirmed that the museum felt full but the numbers were lower than last year. People stayed for longer periods of time. Many groups stayed all day long.

1800 purchased tickets, 70 partner passes (targeted family groups of four), 367 members and comp tickets. (As of Monday, 9/17/02, the total accounted for in the Box Office excluding teachers that School Services counted, the total was just shy of 2000. -C)

Karen — The numbers felt much better than last year, people weren’t stepping all over each other, it seemed like people were enjoying themselves a little more rather than wrangling kids and trying to work their way through the crowds and avoid being stepped on.

Bryan: There was high interest in crickets and lots of questions about being able to do this on their computers at home. It was hard to get people so excited about them when you know the answer is, "no you really can’t use these on your computer at home."

Need to offer other opportunities to be involved. Lists of classes or museum activities that will allow people to continue working with some of the things they've experienced at Mindfest.

Loaner kits would be nice. (There is a good, long precedent in Fort Worth with loan kits for collection materials and teaching kits currently, this would be a natural extension of the work already happening - Chip)

Sue: Must be frustrating to come and get into something and not be able to follow-up on it and use it again somehow.

Parents — always wanting to do too much or do it themselves. Maybe offer things for parents. (I heard at least several requests for playshops for parents through the week. - Chip)

Lots of folks — A place set aside to display the creations needs to be set off from work areas.

Jessie — Taking things apart happened a lot, people would build things and set them aside and someone else would come along and take it apart. Display space was not always clear.

Saafir— There was a little confusion in the CZ about "is this mine"? For the most part people understood that it wasn’t to take away more than they did last year.

Sue: Need to find more off-the-shelf things that people can either take away or get the idea that they can duplicate it easily back at home. (lots of agreement on this point)

Displaying creations with their names and descriptions was a nice element that worked well. Display places could have been more prominent and obvious that they are for finished pieces and not to be taken apart. (Chip used the tags that were created for the Lemelson’s event)

- Should not have someone working in CZ all day.

- It was great to not have piles of LEGO.

Meg: It would have been good to have a staging area in the CZ to orient people with the space and activities.

Needed a place to display examples of things people created, so it didn’t just look like LEGO modules. What could the modules be?

Could have utilized the window spaces for display purposes.

Modules should be glued together, people took them apart and they were too complex for us to know how to put them back together.

Meg - At the end of the day when there were a good number of partially disintegrated modules I had asked several floor staff and Applied Learning Academy students to help reassemble them and it was very hard to do.

Chain Reaction was a more abstract process than a thematic "Day in the Park" It is harder to convey a process than a product or thing like at Lemelson. How do you capture that?

It was clearer at the beginning of the day.

Kristen talked about chain reactions being these magical events where people work together and build off of one another, but in an event that is so full of people it doesn’t happen that way. I almost got two kids to work things out together the entire day.

Molly: a 3^rd area for younger kids would be good, it is important to include them, but they messed up a lot of the things that the older kids were working on.

The stage space was too low and looked like a floor space to work on for the kids.

Michael: There were a few moments early on where he thought the combination of digital elements and other materials were working in combination, but by the afternoon there was more of a separation.

Kristen: At the beginning of the day we were really fresh and things went well but this changed. It was important to have examples of things created using modules to give people of vision, but they ended up getting taken apart so others could use them.

We should develop a list of "roles" needed for pulling off CZ.

Facilitation energy drained over the day.

Hard to disseminate "lessons learned" or "systems we’ve come up with" to the people that followed you in the CZ, because things were always hectic and everyone was busy.

Bryan — what about having a "half-time" where we stop and regroup to share those things mid-day?

Having some kind of performance piece could help with something like that.

Sue: What about lunch? Why can’t you schedule in a lunch break that everyone takes?

Michael — wondering if the modules didn’t hinder us more than they did in DC, b/c time limit wasn’t an issue here. (need him to talk more about this)

Displaying the ideas is a good one, but we did have to recycle the modules a lot so it made this harder.

The ALA (Applied Learning Academy) kids were so helpful to have around, all of the youth staff were so knowledgeable about crickets this year and this really helped. They were eager to take things on and work with the kids

"Take Homes"-

Taking things home ?! Need to work on better ways of distinguishing what stays here and what people can take home with them.

Chip: Having at least one great make and take is so cool. Initially we were afraid that it would be difficult to be clear about what people could take home and what needed to be left here, which is why Pablo’s activity was pushed back towards the end of the day.

Amanda — The balloon activity last year was so difficult that it "scared folks here"

It was hard to tell them they couldn’t take the balloons home with them, after spending so much time working on them.

Cabaret’s Playshop (before the event)-

Sue: In their Playshop this year they were able to let the participants take home their kits which felt much better to them than last year. They also incorporated time to let everyone share out their creations and tell the story that went along with their creations which was wonderful.

They also had a few kits out during the MindFest event that people decorated and then left for display in the museum. Sue and Sarah felt it was more chaotic and disorderly but people seemed to enjoy it and spent a lot of time working on them.

Final thoughts from the Ft Worth Staff ----

Joe — learned a lot about working with the public and things getting a lot of wear. Had to adjust for all the kids, but it was enjoyable.

Bill — the flow seemed smoother this year, people who came had more of a chance to enjoy themselves, things were more balanced / not all crickets

Playshops ahead of time was also nice.

Julie — What she liked most about this year was that the people who came to work the event where about to enjoy themselves more.

Charlie — It helped that we had a year to build capacity with crickets, we’re more comfortable with them now, there is a level of maturity that wasn’t there last year. I saw more people of color participating in the event today and that’s a really great feeling. Also thought more kids were able to get there hands on crickets than last year.

Megan: the energy level was different this year. Last year it was like falling off a cliff, this year was like playing up on the plateau. I also know a lot more about crickets and was more comfortable because of that.

1^st MF kind of has a negative reputation with floor staff, last week people were groaning that "MindFest was coming up" but it was not like that at all today, it was really lots of fun.

Cat in the Hat doing the limbo was a highlight.

Need to incorporate crickets into the dino dig / less dirt more robots (lots of laughter)

Chip — Acknowledging Amanda did a tremendous amount of work and her excitement level went up after going to Lemelson, great to have that opportunity.

Amanda: Email support from others in the network was very helpful to her.

Charlie: Having everyone here this time you could really see how we’re benefiting form the partnership… four more years, ready to re-submit.

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