Charles River Collaboratory

Workshops every hour from 10:30AM - 2:30PM

You’re invited to come see the Collaboratory space during Riverfest on the 17th of June. The wonderful WHS youth that we have been working with for the past few months and our team will be hosting a follow-up soft-opening of the Charles River Collaboratory space at the Museum.

This summer we will be hosting almost 50 WHS youth across programs and now with funding from an anonymous foundation that matched National Science Foundation funding (close to $3M in funds) will start to offer workshops on 3D printing (learn things like how to make the attached 3D printed forest canopy map of Waltham), laser cutting and engraving (learn to do things like the map image attached to this post), coding workshops. These funds also enable us to expand our college-bound oriented program to Waltham to support youth toward their post-secondary goals.

Youth will be learning to build automatic and Artificial intelligence enabled garden robots this summer. You can read more here:

Waltham Riverfest we will be hosting some entry level workshops and you will be able to come see the space and what youth are starting to work on.

To learn more, one of the fantastic youth leaders wrote an article for the WHS Talon, that summarizes the work nicely.

The youth will be engaged in new funded project where we will expand the installation of light, noise pollution sensors and be able to create augmented reality visualization of heat island around parts of the city.

Come by and celebrate the hard work of the WHS youth, as it has been their vision that has been driving the work during the Riverfest event!

Entrance in the Museum Innovator Center,
just adjacent our Museum Visitor Entrance

Charles River Collaboratory "Soft" Opening!

The Charles River Collaboratory will be debuting on May 13th!

FREE TO THE PUBLIC!
Come and visit with a chance to work with:
3D printing, laser cutting, Micro bits
and embroidering!

• Decorate a community airship
in honor of the Watch City Steampunk Festival that day!
• 3D print your own keys!
• Play with a pocket-sized computer!
•  Decorate your own tote bag!

Workshops every hour from 11 AM to 4 PM

Entrance in the Museum Innovator Center,
just adjacent our Museum Visitor Entrance

SALT, SILVER, and SUNBEAMS
Exploring the Timeless Art of Wet Plate Collodion Tintype Photography

presented by Daniel Leocadi
danielleocadi.com

Note: This Talk will be recorded for sharing on the Museum’s YouTube channel at a later date

Daniel Leocadi

Daniel Leocadi is a photographer who specializes in creating unique portraits and landscape works using historical alternative photographic processes from the 1800s. He has dedicated the past decade to mastering these techniques, studying under notable experts such as Mark and France Osterman, as well as John Coffer. Leocadi's preferred method is wet plate collodion photography, a process discovered in the 1850s by Frederick Scott Archer in the UK, which uses silver and light to create images on glass or metal, also known as the Tintype. This process requires the material to stay wet throughout the process, and can take up to fifteen minutes to produce a single photograph.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Weaving Demonstrations
by Members of the Weavers’ Guild

FREE with Museum admission, No registration required

Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

What images do “castles” and “sheds” conjure up for you? They are both parts of a loom. Do you know your “warp” from your “weft”? Come to the museum to see “jack looms” and watch experts practice the craft of handweaving. Listen to their stories, and talk with them about their works in progress.

Get ready to roll! Come learn how to create an entry for the Community Sculpture Race, a 4/10 mile tour of wheeled arts and crafts on the loopy sidewalks around the soccer field at Danehy Park in Cambridge, followed by an 2-hour exhibition of everyone's projects. The race is on April 23rd, as a part of the Cambridge Science Festival, so it's time to get to work!

For anyone thinking about racing an artwork in this year's event Jeff Del Papa, chief engineer for People's Sculpture Racing, will get you off to a flying start. Learn how to construct what is normally considered a stationary art form using a minimum of tools and straightforward materials, make it able to move under your human power, complete with animated bits, and how to get it all to (hopefully) hang together until you cross the finish line.  

This is an event for families (yes, bring the kids), teachers, scouting (or similar) groups and others looking for an interesting project, one that combines art with engineering, to occupy the upcoming school vacation week. The workshop is free with museum admission.  

About the speaker:  Jeff is a Maker, card carrying NERD, and a builder of strange things.  He founded the first American team to appear on the engineering competition show "Junkyard Wars".  He teaches at the Somerville kids makerspace "Parts and Crafts" (he also runs team building events for adults), is the current president of the New England Model Engineering Society, and Chief Engineer for People's Sculpture Racing.

Family memories.  Photo legacies.  Visual timelines of important life experiences.

We all too often forget to document and save our family memories and photos.  Then, in our later years, we lament that we have no recorded visual timeline of important people and events in our lives.  The chance for a photo legacy is lost.

Join us for this Waltham Film Factory Workshop designed to help you get started creating a video project documenting important life moments for yourself, your loved ones, and other special people in your life. Learn how to assemble a video sequence of your favorite photos and/or film and video clips. 

Choose music and create voiceovers to underscore the footage, then add credits and title cards, and you will have a meaningful, professional looking keepsake to view, share, and pass down for generations to come.

This workshop, crafted to naturally pair with the September 21st screening of Rex Trailer's Boomtown, will be taught by a group of experienced and accomplished filmmakers including Michael Bavaro, producer and director of that documentary. 

The cost of this Waltham Film Factory Workshop is $40, and just $30 if you purchased a ticket to the September 21st Rex Trailer documentary screening.