Tinkering School empowers campers with real tools and autonomy to collaboratively design and build ambitious, unique projects, fostering a failure-positive environment where learning comes from doing.
Tinkering School San Francisco offers an immersive, hands-on maker experience where campers aged 5.5 to 16 use real tools and materials to design and build unique projects. Campers are trained to safely use power tools like drills, chop saws, band saws, jigsaws, circular saws, drill presses, and sanders. They work in groups to tackle complex engineering challenges, fostering collaboration, problem-solving skills, and creativity. Projects vary each week and have included large-scale constructions such as a 25ft tall dancing marionette, a NASA-style space mission, human-sized foosball tables, and robots that deliver flowers. The camp emphasizes learning through doing, encouraging campers to embrace mistakes as part of the design process and to try harder than usual. The ultimate goal is for tinkerers to leave elated, exhausted, and amazed at what they can accomplish, valuing the process of building and teamwork over a finished product.
A typical day involves tool training, collaborative design challenges, and extensive building sessions, with a break for lunch and unstructured play time at a nearby park.
This camp is ideal for curious and creative students who enjoy hands-on problem-solving, working with real tools, and collaborating on large-scale building projects.
682 Schofield Road, San Francisco, CA 94129
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