Be inspired to start your next project and learn a new skill or just rekindle your love of making. Craft Punk is all about giving you the tools to take making into your own hands!

DROP-IN SESSION

Plate it up!
23 and 24 March, 10.00am – 4.00pm
Free with Museum admission (ages 12 years and over). No bookings required.

Create a deserving place to plate-up your treats.  Decorate a re-cycled second-hand or vintage plate using porcelain pens and a variety of stencils or hand-draw your design to suit any just dessert!  Take your plate home and cure in the oven so your design can be passed on to posterity. Tools and materials supplied.

BOOKED WORKSHOPS

DIY Quilt Lightshade
23 and 24 March, 10.30am – 12.30pm, 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Suitable for ages 14 and over, beginners welcome.
$45 adult, $40 Powerhouse member (includes Museum admission)
Bookings essential at powerhousemuseum.com

Designer Tamara Maynes shows you how to construct her popular DIY Quilt Lightshade, featured at Milan Design Week and London Design Festival 2012 as part of the Supercyclers collective exhibition. The lightshade incorporates low-environmental impact construction, can be made in multiples and the surface adapted to suit any decor.  Working from a template, you will use medium weight cardboard, craft knife and specialized tape. Decorate from a selection of designer wallpaper patterns. Finished light is 20cm diameter x 15cm high.  Tools and materials supplied.

Tamara Maynes is a designer and specialised maker of interior-based modern craft, decorative art and cleverly designed DIY. She has an online store – The Six Week Boutique and is a member of the Supercyclers sustainable design collective.

Punk Ikebana
23 and 24 March, 10.30am – 12.3pm, 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Suitable for ages 14 and over, beginners welcome.
$45 adult, $40 Powerhouse member (includes Museum admission)
Bookings essential at powerhousemuseum.com

Floral sculptor extraordinaire Tracey Deep will give you the confidence and know-how to create a spectacular floral sculptural display – think ikebana with a punk twist. Tracey has a background in the floral industry and a passion for creating sculptures from flora and found objects. Using exotic native flora, recycled industrial and found botanical material, you will create a design that can be adapted for table or wall.  Learn how to arrange flora in a more sculptural and dramatic way, working with bold shapes, graphic textures and exciting tones. Tools and materials supplied.

Tracey Deep has a Sydney-based business, Floral Sculptures. Her floral installations have been commissioned for hotels, corporate and private functions. Her work has been featured in magazines, public art galleries, festivals, film sets and commercials.

Media contact:
Hayley Gallant, Powerhouse Museum
Tel: 02 9217 0169 / 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Making it showcases outfits from the final year ranges of the top 2012 graduates from four Sydney based fashion design schools: Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW, Sydney Institute; Raffles College of Design and Commerce; University of Technology, Sydney; and the Whitehouse Institute of Design.

This year’s exhibition also marks 20 years of Student Fashion. Since 1993, over 120 designers have showcased their graduate collections in the Museum’s annual display. Making it highlights some of this extraordinary talent, including designers who established their own fashion labels, those that became lecturers and academics, and others that went on to design for major Australian and international fashion brands. Student Fashion ‘alumni’ include Timo Rissanen, Alana Clifton-Cunningham, Gabriel Lee, Toni Maticevski, Micaela Ezra, Lauren Vieyra, Prue Rainey and Dion Lee.

2012 Graduates

Kathleen Choo – University of Technology, Sydney
Kathleen Choo’s conceptual womenswear collection ‘Dimensionality’ explores the process of pattern formation. Inspired by the work of contemporary installation artists and sculptors, the collection seeks to uncover unexpected qualities of depth and dimension in simple shapes and materials. With a focus on industrial wool felt as the primary fabric, sculptural constructions and abstract silhouettes show what can be generated by processes of folding, bonding, laser-cutting and interlocking the materials.

Ryan Samways – Whitehouse Institute of Design
Ryan Samways takes traditional forms of menswear and fuses them with a more relaxed streetstyle aesthetic. His collection includes restrained, elegant styles featuring tailored wool jackets and pants and crisp white shirts. The formality is subverted with cuts and details drawn from street wear like the dropped crotch pant and crossover fisherman’s pant. Proportion and layering are carefully considered to maintain the elegant silhouette.

Andriana Jacky – Raffles College of Design and Commerce
Love and its complex emotional states are explored in Andriana Jacky’s graduate collection. Inspired by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and the flower of love, the rose, Andriana constructed her ‘Aphro’ dress in the form of a densely petalled rose. The rose coloured palette graduating from pink to deep red was used to symbolize Aphrodite’s soul moving from innocence to darkness. This uneasy mood continues in her ‘Cyprus’ outfit with its magnified rose petal print and ballooning form opening to reveal a naked Aphrodite.

Inder Dhillon – Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW, Sydney Institute
Canadian born Inder Dhillon strives to ‘create fashion that empowers and exudes confidence’. Although originally trained in finance she switched to fashion after studying part time at Parsons in New York. Her ‘Lady Klimt’ gown is ‘a contemporary interpretation of the women Klimt depicted in his painting Water Snakes 11. The silhouette reflects the fluidity of the painting, while the embroidery is an interpretation of motifs within the painting. Glomesh is used to gild the body just as Klimt gilded his work.’ The leather ‘Rajasthani Cuff’ dress was inspired by ancient Rajasthani metal cuffs. Inder used laser cutting and leather lacing to reflect the craftsmanship of the metal jewellery.

Student Fashion ‘alumni’

Timo Rissanen
A graduate of UTS, Timo Rissanen’s work was featured in the 1998 Student fashion. His display of outfits constructed from Chux Super Wipes won him the Hound Dog Innovative Design Award. He went on to establish his own label and teach at UTS. In 2010 he was made Assistant Professor of Design and Sustainability at Parsons: The New School for Design in New York and with Alison Gwilt wrote Shaping Sustainable Fashion: Changing the way we Make and use Clothes. Timo’s research, teaching and design practice is concerned with transforming the fashion industry to make it more sustainable and his blog features discussions, projects and exhibitions about fashion and sustainability.

Alana Clifton-Cunningham
Alana Clifton-Cunningham is a fulltime academic within the Fashion and Textile Design course at the University of Technology, Sydney. After graduating from UTS in 1993, Alana worked as a designer in the fashion industry before taking on her current position at UTS in 2000. Her specialisation is knitting which looks beyond traditional knitted coverings for the body. Experimenting with machine and handknitting techniques Alana’s ‘..work evolves mostly through draping three dimensionally on a mannequin’. For her, knitting functions as a vehicle for ‘deconstruction’ with familiar garment structures transformed into disarticulated ‘body pieces’ featuring interpretive narratives and visual messages based on concepts including body scarification and historical garment components.

Gabriel Lee
Gabriel Lee was born and raised in South Korea and moved to Sydney to study fashion at Raffles College of Design and Commerce. He has won numerous awards and competitions both locally and internationally including ‘Best collection’ in the Young fashion designer contest section of the Aquafina Pure Fashion awards held in Vietnam in 2009, 1^st in the tertiary section at The Australian Wool Fashion awards in 2010 and 1^st in the Frock up in Colour section of the Tesuti Awards in 2010. After graduating he presented his debut collection at Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week 2012.

Toni Maticevski
Toni Maticevski graduated from RMIT University in Melbourne and launched his eponymous label in 1999. Drive and vision has seen this talented designer evolve a brand that eschews fast fashion and fads in favour of thoughtful, intriguingly contstructed hand crafted couture with a twist of avant-garde energy. With his signature manipulation of traditional fashion silhouettes and use of unique materials he is now recognised as one of Australia’s most original and talented designers.

Micaela Ezra
A graduate the Fashion Design Studio at the Sydney Institute of Technology, Micaela Ezra is now a fashion designer, textile artist and illustrator. In 2006 Micaela presented her debut collection at Australian Fashion Week. Months later she packed her bags for New York, where she knocked on doors, and was immediately offered a design position at Cynthia Steffe. In 2009 Micaela moved on to become the Creative Director for three womenswear collections, collaborating with Anthropologie, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus and Saks. Micaela currently resides in the WestVillage, where she draws inspiration from the city, and is working towards an independent collection. Micaela’s signature is her fabric manipulation and original, hand-drawn print development.

Lauren Vieyra and Prue Rainey – Cue
Prue Rainey graduated from The Whitehouse Institute of Design in 2000, winning a full scholarship to complete her Masters in Fashion Design at the Academia Italiana, Firenze, Italy. Prue joined Cue in 2000 as a Junior Designer, taking on her current role of Head of Design in 2004. Cue is a design driven company and Australian icon, which has repeatedly been awarded Australia’s favourite fashion brand. Prue’s influence on fashion continues with her having recently developed Illy Strate – a new and unique drawing tool for fashion illustration and design.

On graduating top of her class at the Whitehouse Institute of Design, Sydney 2005, Lauren Vieyra was awarded a full scholarship to study Masters of Fashion Design at Academia Italiana, Firenze, Italy. While studying, Lauren, represented Australia in the Hempel Awards at China Fashion Week and was awarded an Excellence Award for Australia. In 2009, Lauren achieved 2^nd runner up on TV series ‘Project Runway Australia’ (Season 2). Lauren joined leading and long established Australian fashion company Cue in 2008 and is now a Senior Designer on the brand.

Exhibition:              Making it: 20 years of Student Fashion
Dates:                          8 March – 7 October 2013
Address:                    500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney
Website:                     www.powerhousemuseum.com
Admission:              Free with general Museum admission: $12 adult, $6 child and $30 family

Media enquiries:
Hayley Gallant
Tel: 9217 0169 / 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Our team of curators will share their favourite objects from the collection. Whatever you love, there’s a curator who shares your passion – from photography, music and fashion to biotechnology, science and architecture.

Design and society curator Anne-Marie Van de Ven will share her love of Florence Broadhurst revealing two of the Museum’s original 1970s Broadhurst wallpapers sample books plus a sneak peek at a selection of exquisite early 20^th century French fashion plates by Georges Barbier.

Curator of popular culture, Peter Cox, will highlight objects from the Museum’s performing arts collection, including Smoky Dawson’s famous hat and a set of prized Beatles dolls, while curator Charles Pickett will focus on two very different Australian obsessions – homes and gambling.

Curator Sandra McEwen will reveal a great Aussie invention, the stump jump plough, as well as the Ace rabbit trap, one of the most frequently searched for objects on the Museum’s website! And if you ever wondered where the want to “tweet” and “post/like/share” came from, curator Deborah Turnbull will reveal a long history of social communication from fire beacons and signal flags to telegrams and Morse Code.

Our musical curator Michael Lea will give visitors a chance to see an unusual plastic guitar made by one of the world’s most innovative guitar makers and curator Damian McDonald will reveal aspects of the health and medicine collection, including curious 19^th century surgical tools.

Book into one of the Museum’s popular Basement Tours and discover a world of medical and scientific curios with curator Matthew Connell, while curator Lindie Ward will reveal a collection of footwear guaranteed to turn Imelda Marcos green with envy. Or take a peek inside the Museum’s fashion vault with conservatory Suzanne Chee, home to an extraordinary collection ranging from 18th century gowns to 21st century garments.

Our conservators will be on hand to explain and demonstrate how they care for our many precious objects plus will answer your questions about basic conservation practices that can be used at home to protect your personal keepsakes and memories.

Plus meet our fabulous volunteers at special touch trolleys throughout the Museum where you can see demonstrations and get hands-on with working objects to find out more about aspects of our collection, from marvellous machines to moving images, sounds to satellites, rockets to recycling.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see more of the Museum’s collection than ever before! Visit our website for more details www.powerhousemuseum.com/weekendofwonder.

Media contact:
Hayley Gallant, PowerhouseMuseum
Tel: (02) 9217 0169 or 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Meet our curators and find out more about some of their favourite objects. Whatever you love, there’s a curator who shares your passion – from photography, music and fashion to biotechnology, science and architecture.

This is a rare chance to get hands-on with special objects and tour the Museum’s treasures in the basement. See our steam engines come to life; enjoy performances on our working musical collection, explore Mars with radio-controlled models or simply dig your hands into the squelchy world of slime.  All activities free with general Museum admission, unless otherwise stated.

Weekend highlights include:

Meet the Curators
10.00am – 4.00pm
This is your chance to ‘pick the brains’ of a curator as they share their favourite parts of the collection. From fashion, photography and architectural models to musical instruments and code breaking machines, you will get a chance to get up close to some of the most interesting, intriguing and often bizarre items in the Museum’s collection.

Basement Tours
11.00am, 1.00pm, 3.00pm
The Museum is filled with amazing objects, each with their own fascinating history. But with only a small fraction of the collection on display at any one time, our basement storage facility is a treasure trove of stories. Join a guided tour and discover medical and scientific curios, our quirky collection of footwear or take a peek into our fashion vault, home to a collection ranging from 18th century gowns to 21st century garments. For ages 12 and over. Cost: $30 adult/$26 Powerhouse Members. Bookings essential at powerhousemuseum.com.

Caring for our Collection
10.00am – 4.00pm
The Museum’s conservators and registrars will be on hand to explain and demonstrate how they care for our many precious museum objects. This includes preserving, treating, cataloguing, object numbering, maintaining digital databases, and travelling all manner of objects around Australia and the world.

Touch Trolleys
10.00am – 3.00pm
See demonstrations and get hands-on with working objects to find out more about aspects of our collection, from marvellous machines to moving images, sounds to satellites, rockets to recycling. Meet our fabulous volunteers at special touch trolleys throughout the Museum.

A Very Long Memory: A tale of one elephant
10.30am and 1.30pm
In this storytelling session, our volunteers take a humorous look at the history of the Powerhouse Museum through the eyes of one of the Museum’s much loved objects “the graphite elephant”. Where did it come from? What did it do for fun after the International Exhibition? Did it really survive the fire of the Garden Palace? Help create the story and watch it come to life in a fun animation at the end.

Science shows
Every hour, 11.00am – 4.00pm
Kids will love our fun-filled, interactive science shows. Be amazed at the incredible power of steam, join space scientists on the S.S. Powerhouse for an adventure to Neptune’s largest Moon, Triton, or get hands-on with our super silly slime.

Lace Luvvies
10.30am – 12noon
Visit our Lace Study Centre and discover over 300 of the most significant examples of handmade lace in the Museum’s collection including fine handmade lace from the late 1500s to more recent machine-made pieces.

Grand Piano recitals
1.00pm – 4.00pm
This is your chance to listen to the Museum’s working music collection including the Disclavier and Stuart Piano.

Steam Drivers in action
10.00am – 4.00pm
This weekend our steam engines come alive! An engine driver will be on hand to attend to the engines and discuss them with you. And yes, the engines are run on steam and not compressed air!

Life on Mars
10.00am – 4.00pm
Visit our Mars yard and learn the latest in robotic development and astrobiology in the search for life on Mars from researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.

Meet Zoe & Cogs
10.00am – 4.00pm
Meet the Museum’s mascots. Zoe is a curious girl with a big imagination and she loves to visit the Museum and play with her best friend Cogs. Cogs is a problem solving robot who lives in the Museum and is always learning new things about objects.

Meet Design Aficionado Krispin K
10.00am – 4.00pm
Meet our resident design aficionado, international trend forecaster and fashion guru Krispin K. After years touring the globe for the best of design, he’s back in Australia ready to poke around the Museum’s collection for examples of design excellence!

Gaming the Powerhouse with Minecraft & Scratch
10.30am, 11.30am, 1.00pm, 2.00pm, 3.00pm
Join one of our Thinkspace workshops and build the PowerhouseMuseum inside Minecraft or create animations and games using the visual programming software Scratch! Suitable for ages 7-14. Cost: $10 child, $8 Powerhouse member child. Bookings essential at powerhousemuseum.com.

Exhibitions and displays
Explore the Museum’s many exhibitions including Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention, Love Lace, Student Fashion and The Wiggles. Plus see two new displays of contemporary and historical objects drawn from the Museum’s collection: Upcycled features objects that have been given a new life, from a 1905 Cadillac converted to a ‘ute’ to a chair made from cotton reels; and Technologies that changed our mind explores some of the technologies that fundamentally changed our concept of who we are and our place in the universe.

On View:                Weekend of Wonder
Dates:                      9 & 10 March 2013, 10am – 5pm
Address:                Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo
Website:                www.powerhousemuseum.com 
Admission:         All activities free with general Museum admission unless otherwise stated.
General admission: $12 adult, $6 child, $8 concession, $30 family.

Media contact:
Hayley Gallant, PowerhouseMuseum
Tel: (02) 9217 0169 or 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Access to Life shows over 250 photographs by nine of the world’s best photographers from the international agency Magnum Photos, renowned for interpreting and chronicling people and personalities, global issues and events, in a compassionate and meaningful way.

The images tell the poignant stories of people living with HIV after receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment in ten developing countries: Papua New Guinea, India, Vietnam, Russia, Swaziland, Haiti, Mali, South Africa, Peru and Rwanda.

In partnership with Magnum Photos, the Access to Life project was initiated in 2008 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which supports AIDS treatment in 147 countries around the world, and provides AIDS treatment for 3.6 million people.

Simon Bland, Board Chair, The Global Fund said: “AIDS is the largest health catastrophe in modern history. Whilst it was only diagnosed less than 30 years ago, in that short time it has infected over 60 million people, of whom nearly 30 million have died.

“Since the turn of this century however, a revolution has taken place in the fight against AIDS. Whilst it is still an incurable disease, the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, now make it possible to live with HIV. It is no longer an inevitable death sentence. These powerful, intimate photographic stories remind us of what it means to have access to treatment, to better health.

“Access to Life is a testament to the complexity of the fight against AIDS. Not all the stories end happily, because this is how it is in the real world. However, this exhibition shows the highly effective results that ARV treatment is now having on people’s lives in developing countries.

“While ARV drugs have been available in wealthier countries since the 1990s, people in poorer countries have only had access to treatment in the last decade and there are still around 8 million people with HIV that need treatment today but don’t get it. Our fight is far from over.”

Award-winning UK Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, who has captured new images from Papua New Guinea that will be shown in Access to Life for the first time in Sydney, is in Australia for the opening. Papua New Guinea is facing the largest HIV epidemic in the Asia-Pacific today.

Chris Steele-Perkins said: “I have done a lot of work covering the tragedies of the world, and the spread of HIV is one of them. I remember going to Uganda in the late 80s with Dr Lugwaba who was one of the two Ugandan doctors who identified ‘slim’, a wasting illness spreading across the country, as AIDS. Then it was fatal and the sufferers I met were going to die very shortly. It seemed hopeless.

“Since then there has been considerable change. The effectiveness of new treatments mean that contracting HIV is no longer a death sentence, so long as people can access the drugs and understand how effective they are.

“Papua New Guinea was a new experience for me. I had never been there before. I met a number of fine people who were generous and open about their condition. There is tragedy, pain, loneliness, fear, misinformation and rejection surrounding any fatal illness. However, there was always a sense of hope and affirmation of life, lighting the darker corners here.”

The launch of the Access to Life exhibition in Sydney coincides with 30 years since the first reported case of HIV in Australia in late 1982. Australia responded with its most successful public health campaign; one that is, to this day, revered globally in health sectors.

Australia’s approach to HIV and AIDS over the last three decades will be told by the Powerhouse in a new display, HIV & AIDS 30 years on: the Australian story.

Dr Dawn Casey, Director, Powerhouse Museum said: “This display explores how Australia successfully dealt with the epidemic. It is a remarkable part of Australia’s history where both sides of government, led by at risk communities, changed social attitudes and implemented public health campaigns that saved thousands of lives. It is an inspiring story.”

Access to Life HIV & AIDS 30 years on: the Australian story will be officially launched as part of the World AIDS Day 2012 program, to be launched this evening at the Powerhouse Museum by Her Excellency the Governor-General Ms Quentin Bryce, in the presence of NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner.

On View: Access to Life and HIV & AIDS 30 years on: the Australian story
Dates: 27 November 2012 – 9 June 2013
Address: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney
Telephone: (02) 9217 0111 or infoline (02) 9217 0444
Website: powerhousemuseum.com
Hours: 10.00am to 5.00pm
Cost: General admission $12 adult, $6 child, $8 student/concession, $30 family. Powerhouse Museum members and children under 4 years free.

An exhibition produced and toured as a Magnum Photos / Global Fund partnership.
Presented in association with Pacific Friends of the Global Fund.
Exhibition major partners: AusAID and Oil Search Health Foundation.

For media information, interviews and images contact:
Mandy Campbell, Powerhouse Museum, tel: (02) 9217 0551 or mandyca@phm.gov.au

Shaun’s whimsical stories of Mintox’s failed inventions are inspired by strange and largely obscure objects from the Powerhouse Museum collection. An automatic tea-maker, sheep clippers and an early hearing aid are among the artefacts re-imagined by the award-winning author and illustrator.

The Oopsatoreum explores the vast cemetery of achievement that lies behind every enduring innovation. It questions many assumptions we might have about ingenuity. What does it mean to be truly original? Should creativity be measured only by success? Or is it really the thought that counts … no matter how impractical?

A book for anyone who has ever made a mistake, The Oopsatoreum features original drawings by Shaun Tan along with beautifully photographed objects from the Powerhouse Museum collection. An exhibition bringing to life the world of Henry Mintox will open at the Museum in 2013.

About Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and now works as an artist, author and filmmaker in Melbourne. Books such as The Rabbits, The Red Tree, Tales From Outer Suburbia and the acclaimed wordless novel The Arrival have been widely translated and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun has also worked as a theatre designer and feature film concept artist. He wrote and directed the 2011 Academy Award winning animated short film, The Lost Thing. In 2011 he received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden for his body of work.

The Oopsatoreum
Format: 76 pages, illustrated throughout in colour and black and white, hb 210 x 180 mm
RRP: $16.95
ISBN 978-1-86317-144-1
Distributed by: NewSouth Books, tel: +61 2 8778 9999, www.newsouthbooks.com.au
Available from: Powerhouse Museum Shop or online

Media enquiries, images or interviews contact:
Hayley Gallant, Publicist, Powerhouse Museum
Tel: 9217 0169 or 0413 985 277 Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Bookings essential for all workshops

Great Aussie Invention Trail
Discover some ofAustralia’s greatest innovations from Vegemite and box kites to a grand piano and dual-flush toilet. Pick up the trail at the Museum admission desk. Ages 8 years and over.
From 15 December, 10am – 5pm
Free with Museum admission.

Great Aussie Inventions Quiz
Join a hands-on quiz with multiple choice questions on inventions and innovation. Three shows every day, plus Wallace & Gromit bonus rounds. Win prizes through our barrel draw. Ages 6 years and over.
7 – 28 January, 11am, 1pm and 3pm
Free with Museum admission.

Wallace’s Workshop for budding inventors
A full day program where budding inventors will visit Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention and take part in the Australian Inventions Trail and Quiz Show. Plus design and make your own invention using modelling clay and enjoy a range of other hands-on activities. Lunch and afternoon tea is included. Ages 8 – 12 years.
Tuesday – Thursday only, 8 – 24 January, 9.30am – 4pm
$80 per person, $70 members. Bookings essential.

Stop Motion Animation – one day
Learn animator’s secrets and techniques as you create a short film frame-by-frame with mixed-media, paper, illustration, LEGO® or plasticine. Share it with family and friends. Ages 7 – 13.
10 or 11 January, 9.30am – 3.30pm
$100 per person, $80 members. Bookings essential.

Stop Motion Animation – two days
Capture images using a HD web-cam and stop frame software. Create ideas through brainstorming and storyboarding. Use SFX and music to create an original soundtrack. Ages 7 – 13.
23 & 24 January, 9.30am – 3.30pm
$190 per person, $170 members. Bookings essential.

Star in your own movie – two days
Be the hero in your own Machinima movie. Film yourself in the Thinkspace green screen, add custom skins, sounds and special FX, adding overlays, chromakey, keyframing and much more. Ages 8 – 12.
8 & 9, 15 & 16, 22 & 23 January, 10am – 4pm
$190 per person, $170 members. Bookings essential.

Design a Video Game – two days
Create a small video game using storyboards, game-play logic, characters and art direction. Plus learn the core concepts of computer programming.
7 & 8 January, 10am – 4pm for ages 9 – 14
21 & 22 January, 10am – 4pm for ages 8-12
$190 per person, $170 members. Bookings essential.

Get building with Minecraft – one day
Build complex and functional constructions through individual and group tasks. Ingenious designs will be published to the online Minecraft gallery. Ages 7 – 12.
2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25 January (including girls only session 17 Jan), 10am – 4pm
$100 per person, $80 members. Bookings essential.

Scratch and Lego We-Do Pacman – one day 
Make your own Pacman game and play it. Learn about Scratch software and make your own animations, plus use Lego We-Do and Pico boards to control your project. Ages 7 – 13.
2, 3, 4, 9, 25 January (including girls only session 25 Jan), 9.30am – 3.30pm
$100 per person, $80 members. Bookings essential.

Hands-on practical electronics – one day 
Make an 8 bit music player and transmit secret messages with light patterns. Learn about microcontrollers, programming and prototyping as you build electronic components using breadboards, hook-up wire and a prototyping board. Ages 7 – 13.
10 or 11 January (including girls only session 10 Jan), 10.30am – 4.30pm
$140 per person, $126 members. Bookings essential.

Power up with practical electronics – two days
Learn how to find and modify programs. Connect multiple electronic components including sensors, switches and motors. Control electronic devices using the Arduino and Processing programming languages. Drive the Museum’s research robot on our recreation of planet Mars. Ages 8 – 14.
14 & 15 or 17 & 18 January, 10.30am – 4.30pm
$250 per person, $225 members. Bookings essential.

Media enquiries:
Hayley Gallant, Powerhouse Museum
Tel: (02) 9217 0169 or 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Opening on 15 December, the Australian inventions display appears alongside the cracking contraptions featured in the Museum’s summer exhibition Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention.

“Inventors think up clever solutions to problems, tinkering with ideas, materials and existing devices to make new things. This display tells four great stories of invention and features a number of objects from the Museum’s collection,” said curator of power technologies, Debbie Rudder.

“Whether it’s the creation of a bionic ear that has changed the lives of thousands of people, or the development of software that has changed the way animated movies are made, the Australian spirit of invention is alive and well.”

Supreme mousetrap machine
In 1943, an inventor named Arnold Wesley Standfield fromNew South Walescreated an amazing mouse-trap machine and in the process came to the rescue of households and farmers throughout the country.

Built almost entirely from scrap metal, the Supreme Mousetrap Machine was a remarkable example of Australian ingenuity and, over the next 58 years, AW Stanfield & Co. churned out more than 96 million mouse-traps from a small factory in Mascot,Sydney.

Our favourite breakfast spread
In 1923 chemist Cyril Callister set out to make a tasty spread using left-over brewery yeast, similar to England’s Marmite. The result was called Pure Vegetable Extract which, following a national naming competition, became Vegemite.

Over the years, innovative marketing, including the famous ‘Happy Little Vegemites’ jingle, has made Vegemite a best-seller. Vegemite may now be owned by US company Kraft but it still remains an Aussie favourite; more than 22 millions jars are produced each year from Kraft Foods’ Australian factory.

The bionic ear
In the 1960s Australian Dr Graeme Clark set out to help profoundly deaf people hear. Clark imagined threading an electrode with a flexible tip into the human cochlea, a spiral organ within the inner ear, carrying sound as electric signals. Clark and his team took years to create and prove an implant, plus a transmitter that’s worn on the user’s head and a body-worn processor.

The first commercial system was released in 1983 and allowed people who had lost their hearing as adults to hear again. The team didn’t stop there, continuing to innovate, making better, smaller processors. The Cochlear company now holds over 700 patents, plus registered designs and trademarks, to protect its world-leading status. Over 219,000 people worldwide have received cochlear implants.

Smart help for animators
WhenMelbourneanimator Paul Howell wondered why one of British company Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit films looked clunky and the next was smooth and slick, he discovered it was some very expensive software that made the difference.
With software engineer Ross Garner, Howell set out to make better, cheaper preview software and Stop Motion Pro was the result. The software allows animators to review their production as they work, saving valuable time and speeding up the making of animated movies. Stop Motion Pro has since become world-leading software for making animated films, and the company has created some video, and lent some intriguing objects, for this display.

On View: Australian Inventions
Dates:  From 15 December 2012
Address: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney
Telephone: (02) 9217 0111
Website: www.powerhousemuseum.com
Hours: 10.00am to 5.00pm
Admission: Free with general Museum admission: $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.

For media information, interviews and images contact:
Hayley Gallant, Powerhouse Museum, tel: (02) 9217 0169 or hayleyg@phm.gov.au

Based on the much-loved, animated British film characters, Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention is a highly interactive experience, inspiring creativity and inventive thinking in all ages.

It combines the quirky humour and antics of the world-famous duo with a wide selection of educational experiences and also a series of interactive devices built by the resourceful inventor, Wallace, with the help of his clever companion, Gromit.

Visitors will be able to explore 62 West Wallaby Street, the home of Wallace and Gromit, and have a go at some of the pair’s more colourful inventions, including concocting original smoothie recipes with the Blend-o-matic and changing TV channels using the step-by-step mechanics of the Tellyscope II. The exhibition also introduces new inventions such as the Karaoke Disco Shower, where visitors can test their vocal chords with a full musical accompaniment.

“The Powerhouse Museum celebrates innovation and ingenuity, so we are very excited to have the chance to showcase the work of one of the world’s most unusual and famous fictional inventors,” said Powerhouse Museum Director, Dr Dawn Casey.

The exhibition also highlights how budding inventors can protect their ideas through intellectual property rights including patents, trade marks and copyright. Playing the part of Wallace’s apprentice, visitors can learn about the importance of intellectual property through a series of ‘Idea Stations’, where they can explore their creativity by inventing household tools, logos and even a character trade mark.

“Intellectual property turns clever ideas into business opportunities. I hope the exhibition inspires a new generation of Australian inventors to think of IP from the word go,” said IPAustralia’s Director General, Philip Noonan.

Before entering the house, visitors will also see some smashing ideas from Aussie inventors from the Museum’s own collection. These include the bionic ear, software for making Wallace & Gromit movies, and a truly amazing contraption, the mousetrap-making machine.

“Australiahas a proud history of developing ground-breaking inventions and this exhibition provides the perfect opportunity to revisit some of the greatest and show how a simple idea can grow into life-changing innovation,” said Dr Casey.

Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention will open at thePowerhouseMuseum on 15 December 2012.

On View: Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention
Dates: 15 December 2012 – 26 May 2013
Address: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney
Telephone: (02) 9217 0111 or infoline (02) 9217 0444
Website: www.powerhousemuseum.com
Hours: 10.00am to 5.00pm (from 9.30am during school holidays)
Admission: Family $45, Adult $17, Child (4–15 yrs) $12, Student card holders,pensioner and concession $14. Powerhouse members free. Tickets on sale through ticketek.com.au.

For media information, interviews and images contact:
Hayley Gallant, Powerhouse Museum
Tel: (02) 9217 0169 or 0413 985 277
Email: hayleyg@phm.gov.au