"Tinkering" and "making" have taken their places next to science exploration and inquiry as the basis for highly engaging design-based activities in science centers. Engineering Studio—where visitors learn by designing and building solutions to design challenges, in real time, using real tools—is helping to usher in this next generation of learning environments at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

At each Engineering Studio component visitors respond to an engineering design challenge that is interesting and inviting to a broad museum audience. Visitors make discoveries and work with physics and material constraints as they design, build, test and revise a solution to the design challenge. And Engineering Studio supports problem solving in a social environment, where good ideas are discussed and shared.

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This project is supported in part by a contribution from 3M.

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