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Cardboard boxes form the raw materials for walls and towers in the Mayborn Museum’s “Cardboard Craze” exhibit.
How high can it go? A young visitor to “Cardboard Craze” aims to find out. Cardboard boxes form the raw materials for walls and towers in the Mayborn Museum’s new exhibit.
Tables and trays of cardboard pieces and tools await young creators.
A Cardboard City rises above street outlines on the carpet.
VIEW: See a video and more photos from the exhibit at wacotrib.com. Just point your smartphone camera at the QR code, then tap the link.
Kids and cats have long thought outside the box when it comes to cardboard and “Cardboard Craze,” the Mayborn Museum’s new exhibit, travels that territory, providing plenty of building materials for young imaginations willing to explore.
The exhibit, one of the largest created by Mayborn staff, pairs opportunity for youthful creativity with a message on recycling and sustainability, with recyclable, renewable cardboard the focus.
Alan Small, the Mayborn’s STEM program coordinator, said “Cardboard Craze” draws on the museum’s Design Den, a makers’ space for kids, in building and crafting with materials at hand.
The Mayborn Museum's "Cardboard Craze" exhibitpairs opportunity for youthful creativity with a message on recycling and sustainability, with recyclable, renewable cardboard the focus.
Staged in the museum’s traveling exhibits area, the exhibit offers two general spaces: a building area where kids can stack boxes and blocks into walls, towers and structures, and a making area where exhibit participants work with scraps of cardboard, tools and art supplies to label and color their creations.
The larger building area has room for kids to move boxes horizontally and vertically with staff applauding each time a too-tall tower falls — an aural encouragement meant to keep disappointed builders from crying, Small said. Streets marked on the carpet outline the area for a Cardboard City with buildings added by budding architects and engineers.
The making area features plastic hand saws that are “mean to cardboard, but nice to fingers” to cut down cardboard sheets into smaller pieces. Young creators can assemble their work with plastic clips and bolts standing in for glue and tape.
Cut and shaped cardboard pieces turn into a bear in the Mayborn Museum’s “Cardboard Craze.”
A miniature Pat Neff Hall demonstrates the varied uses of cardboard.
A display area allows builders to show off their finished products, which this week included bookcases and mobiles as well as a Baylor bear and miniature Pat Neff Hall crafted by Mayborn employees. A board covered with sticky notes provides suggestions for young inventors to explore.
Raw material for the exhibit comes from the Cameron Park Zoo, Baylor dining services and the Dr Pepper Museum as well as the Mayborn, its staffers and volunteers.
Mayborn Museum STEM program coordinator Alan Small shows a cardboard box transformed by markers into the head of a wearable cat costume.
Boxes, carts and tables filled with flattened cardboard boxes, sheets and scraps await sorting and treatment in a storage and staging room behind the exhibit space. Small said museum employees have to make sure the paper products don’t have tiny pests that could cause problems with the museum’s collections and exhibits.
After five weeks of collecting and setting up the exhibit, the Mayborn workers have developed an eye for what’s best for building. Salt boxes from the Cameron Park Zoo’s aquarium were particularly sturdy as are Girl Scout cookie boxes, Small noted.
Cardboard being cardboard, there’s plenty available for replenishing. “We have more than enough to last us the entire exhibit,” he said.
Molly Noah, the museum’s marketing coordinator, said the Mayborn’s weekly Mini Mondays and Tinker Tuesdays programs for kids would integrate their activities and offerings with “Cardboard Craze” during its run.
“Cardboard Craze” will run through April 2 with the touring exhibit “Scooby-Doo! Mansion Mayhem” set to open a summer run on April 22.
When, where: Through April 2 at the Mayborn Museum, 1300 S. University Parks Drive. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 1-5 p.m. Sundays.
Admission: $10, $8 for children 2-12 and $9 for senior adults.
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Carl Hoover has covered Waco arts and entertainment, and more, for the Tribune-Herald since 1984.
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Cardboard boxes form the raw materials for walls and towers in the Mayborn Museum’s “Cardboard Craze” exhibit.
Mayborn Museum STEM program coordinator Alan Small shows a cardboard box transformed by markers into the head of a wearable cat costume.
Cut and shaped cardboard pieces turn into a bear in the Mayborn Museum’s “Cardboard Craze.”
A miniature Pat Neff Hall demonstrates the varied uses of cardboard.
How high can it go? A young visitor to “Cardboard Craze” aims to find out. Cardboard boxes form the raw materials for walls and towers in the Mayborn Museum’s new exhibit.
Tables and trays of cardboard pieces and tools await young creators.
A Cardboard City rises above street outlines on the carpet.
VIEW: See a video and more photos from the exhibit at wacotrib.com. Just point your smartphone camera at the QR code, then tap the link.
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