Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery

Celebrate your inner engineer!

Do you love to build? Science World’s Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery is the place to be! Take part in our daily tinkering programming where you can problem solve, make new things from existing parts, create something cool and imaginative, and learn through experimenting and making mistakes. You’ll also learn about the science behind safety and how important it is to choose the right tool for the job. You can also build anything you can think of out of our thousands of wooden KEVA planks. Whether you’re up for making a replica of the Roman Colosseum or just want to lay down some simple train tracks, KEVA is good for absorbing, brain-building, creative fun.

If you really like tinkering, you can also keep an eye out for one of our Maker Studios, where you will have the opportunity to make something using a new, bigger tool while learning about your safety when working in a new environment with new tools! You will lose yourself in questioning, imagining, designing, creating—and, of course, tinkering with your project! Keep an eye on our events page for upcoming dates.

What is tinkering? Tinkering is both a physical and mental activity. It is both engaging with and observing the world around you. When one is tinkering, they are exploring their natural curiosity, pondering new questions, creatively designing solutions, collaborating with others, testing ideas and discovering new paths to further explore. Tinkering is a raw and playful approach to learning by giving you the freedom to pursue ideas that are inspiring to you personally. It allows you a safe space develop an understanding of cause and effect and logical thinking while fostering your creativity at the same time. It teaches you that failure is not something to be afraid of, but something to celebrate and learn from.  
Nicole Vieira, Tinkering Space Curator 2021-2024

Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery would not be possible without the generous support of:

Want to keep tinkering at home? Follow along with these videos!

Tinkering with Origami

Tinkering with Spinning Scenes

Tinkering with Zip Lines

Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures. There are a lot of different designs and tutorials out there, but let’s look at this through a tinkerer’s eyes.

A lot of origami figures stem from the same base folds. For example, all of these origami figures came from what’s known as the waterbomb base. We can learn how to do the waterbomb base and then tinker with that to either try and recreate these designs or even come up with our own. So my question to you is: what can you create from an origami waterbomb base?

Suggested materials: All we need is a single square piece of paper for this.

In this tinker-along challenge, we will be constructing a design that combines two different ideas: pinwheels and thaumatropes. This gives us two different aspects in our design to tinker with. A thaumatrope is a toy originating from Victorian times that demonstrates persistence of vision. By positioning two images back to back and spinning this design, the two images appear to blend together. How can we draw and position our images so that when blended together, they create a cohesive image?

To create this contraption and tinker with wind vision, we’ll need to have some thick paper or cardboard, tape, a skewer/dowel/or pencil, a straw that fits over our skewer/dowel/or pencil, paper and markers, scissors, and something to make your pinwheel out of (be creative and tinker with different materials!).

We have a problem, we have to figure out how to get our passenger from the top of the zip line down to the bottom safely. Can you help us figure it out?

In this Tinkering at Home activity, we break down the Design Cycle and use it to build a safe zip line from items we can find around us. This can be done with any manner of materials you find around the house. But we recommend tinkering with things like paper, pipe cleaners, elastics, paper clips, popsicle sticks, and tape. You can also tinker with different types of zipline material such as twine, yarn, thread, fishing line, even your skipping rope!

Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery

Included with admission. Limited capacity.

Celebrate your inner engineer!

Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery would not be possible without the generous support of:

Want to keep tinkering at home? Follow along with these videos!

We believe that now, more than ever, the world needs people who care about science. Help us fund the future and next generation of problem solvers, wonder seekers, world changers and nerds.

Included with admission. Limited capacity.

Celebrate your inner engineer!

Tinkering Space: The WorkSafeBC Gallery would not be possible without the generous support of:

Want to keep tinkering at home? Follow along with these videos!

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We believe that now, more than ever, the world needs people who care about science. Help us fund the future and next generation of problem solvers, wonder seekers, world changers and nerds.