What

Self-directed

When

Terms 2 to 4, Monday to Friday
22 April to 19 December 2025

Duration

1 hour

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Curriculum links & Accessibility & Access Fund

Year level

Years F to 6

Minmum student numbers

Minimum 15 students

Maximum student numbers

Maximum 60 students

Cost

$9 per student + education service fee

Booking information

Bookings 13 11 02

School visit information

In this self-guided exhibition, excursion students will engage with the engineering design process by building cubby houses and other imaginative structures.

Solve challenges, send secret messages and invent wacky contraptions. There are endless possibilities for engineering and play-based learning.

Students will experience

• The engineering design process while engaging with hands-on design challenges
• Designing and building inventions with the end-user in mind
• Loose-parts and building materials to spark open-ended or guided tinkering
• Communication, coding and creation through interactive and manipulatable patterns and puzzles
• Building a soft cubby with masses of magnetic cushions
• Coding a message on a giant fidget popper wall
• Sending a secret message over the airwaves with whisper tubes

Students will learn

• Which shapes are the strongest and how we use this knowledge in design thinking
• How an object’s material, size, and shape impact its purpose, movement and function ·
• How to design an invention for the end-user ·
• How forces can be used to alter the speed and direction of objects ·
• How art is integrated into design and inventing

Extend your Tinkertown experience into your classroom with our curriculum-aligned teacher resource! Offering pre and post classroom activities as well as guides to creating meaningful tinkering time while exploring the exhibition. Coming soon!

Check out our staff-led education workshops and programs to build upon your school excursion! Programs are linked below within corresponding curriculum areas.

Victorian Curriculum links

Physical Sciences

Level F-2

• the way objects move depends on a variety of factors including their size, shape and material
  VC2S2U10
• pushes and pulls are forces that can change an object’s movement or shape and can be represented in terms of strength and direction
  VC2S2U11

Related Program: Roller Coaster Engineer 

Level 3-4

• forces, including frictional, gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic, can be exerted by one object on another through direct contact or from a distance and affect the motion (speed and direction) of objects 
  VC2S4U10

Related Program: Toys and Forces Show

Chemical Sciences

Level 3-4

• the properties of natural and made materials, including fibres, metals, glass and plastics, influence their use and re-use
  VC2S4U05

Design and Technologies

Level F-2

• explore how technologies affect movement in products and systems
  VC2TDE2C01
• explore the characteristics and properties of materials and components that are used to create designed solutions
  VC2TDE2C04

Level 3-4

• describe how the properties of materials affect function in a product or system
  VC2TDE4C04

Level 5-6

• explain how characteristics and properties of materials, systems, components and tools affect their use when producing designed solutions 
  VC2TDE6C04

Digital Technologies

Level F-2

• explore patterns in data and represent data as objects, pictures, symbols, numbers and words
  VC2TDI2D01

Related Program: Rainbows, Shadows & Light STEM Workshop

Level 3-4

• recognise different types of data and explore how the same data can be represented differently depending on the purpose
  VC2TDI4D01

Related Program: Robots and Coding