Living Leonardos Maker Festival @ ArtScience Museum

Our Parenting World team visited the much anticipated Da Vinci: Shaping the Future, at ArtScience Museum exhibition last month. Please click HERE to read about our earlier visit. This time, Gor Gor and other children are invited to participate in the “Living Leonardos Maker Festival”. 

As part of its latest exhibition, Da Vinci: Shaping the Future, ArtScience Museum will celebrate the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci through a creative and innovative festival – Living Leonardos. As one of the anchor venues of this year’s Singapore Maker Festival, ArtScience Museum will be organising a series of creative hands-on workshops, inspired by da Vinci, for the young and inventive. Gor Gor attended the museum tour together with other children and this is specially designed to focus more on educating children. Gor Gor finds it fascinating and educating to learn more about the various talents of this great man, Leonardo Da Vinci whom he has heard so much about. It is a valuable and enriching experiences for him. 

There are five themes in the exhibition hall. The tour started from the Mathematics section where children were given the chance to play with different shapes and dimensions.

Next was the Natural Sciences section where children studied leaves and human figures. Then they proceeded to the Architectural section where they tried their hands in designing and building an urban city. The theme for the fourth section was on Civic tools and Military arts. There are interesting computer interactive games to learn on how to defend a city from various types of military attacks. Finally they proceeded to the Music section and learned the various types of sounds produced by the musical instruments. The children were also told of the history of the Codex Atlanticus and how it was preserved to this day.

Throughout the tour, the children were given hands-on sessions by the tour leader and participated in group activities. This made the children’s tour very interesting. One of the children’s favourite activities was to make their own parachutes at the end of the tour.

For Living Leonardos Festival, there are a number free activities where the visitors to the museum can try their hands on. Some of the activities that Gor Gor has attempted including:

1. Digital doodling and 3D printing by Simplifi 3D. Participants could learn to transform da Vinci’s 2D sketches into 3D objects using a 3D pen and doodler.
2. Codex Hacking by David Liew. Participants could create their own “leather bound” Codex Atlanticus (notebook) with A6-sized notebook and pieces of off-cut foam.
3. Silkscreen/batik circuits by Cherlyn Mak: Participants could create batik prints from unconventional products and embed it with LEDs to illuminate the designs inspired by da Vinci.

Our Parenting World would like to thank the lovely organisers and ArtScience Museum for having us and organising this meaningful event. It has been a fun and exciting afternoon for  us and especially for Gor Gor because it is an eye opener for him to learn more about the many talents of Da Vinci and his inventions through these hands-on practical workshops.

Additional Information 

As part of its latest exhibition, Da Vinci: Shaping the Future, ArtScience Museum will celebrate the life and works of da Vinci through a creative and innovative festival. Living Leonardos is held from 10 – 14 Dec (Wednesday to Sunday), in conjunction with the inaugural Singapore Maker Festival 2014 – an umbrella event celebrating the Maker movement in Singapore. The Maker Festival advocates hands-on learning, promotes ‘do-it-yourself’ activities and celebrates the talents and inventiveness of local makers.

As one of the anchor venues of this year’s Festival, ArtScience Museum will be organising a series of creative hands-on workshops for the young and inventive. The public can participate workshops that are inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. Participants can drop-in for these activities between 1pm – 7pm, on Thursday to Sunday, throughout the event. Admission to the event and workshops is free.

For more information on Living Leonardos, please visit https://www.facebook.com/events/799447003432604/