Minnesota Children’s Museum Welcomes TINKERTOY®: Build Your Imagination™ Exhibit

Exhibit opens Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017

There’s no limit to what kids can do in TINKERTOY®: Build Your Imagination™, an interactive exhibit. Giant replicas of the classic TINKERTOY construction set provide the framework for fun, educational activities inspired by GE technologies that turn imagination into working solutions to real world challenges.

The exhibit opens Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017 and runs through Monday, Jan. 15, 2018. TINKERTOY®: Build Your Imagination™, was developed by Betty Brinn Children’s Museum in collaboration with GE and PLAYSKOOL®, the infant/preschool toy division of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS). Giant replicas of the classic TINKERTOY construction set provide the framework for fun, educational activities inspired by GE technologies that turn imagination into working solutions to real world challenges.

Visitors to the exhibit will enjoy a variety of activities that promote imagination and collaboration:

The Welcome Gallery – The Welcome Gallery celebrates the 95th anniversary of TINKERTOY through a retrospective of the toy’s history, and highlights GE technologies that improve communities around the globe every day.

Invent – Children are encouraged to think about where ideas come from, and to explore the emerging field of biomimicry – nature’s influence on design. Visitors can match real inventions with their natural inspiration and create a design of their own.

Collaborate – Dual-sided panels allow visitors to work independently or with a partner to create TINKERTOY designs.

Energize – Children can explore GE’s commitment to renewable energy as they use a kid-powered fan to test their own wind-powered TINKERTOY creations.

Change – A Rube Goldberg-like contraption illustrates the power of creative thinking and how simple mechanisms work. The activity lets children select and position words to build silly – but thought-provoking! – sentences that serve as the springboard for innovation.

Process/Connect – TINKERTOY-inspired equipment lets children explore the concept of filtration, while a companion activity invites them to build ball tracks that illustrate how GE technologies help address the challenge of providing clean water. Finding the correct path through a graphic maze answers children’s curiosity about “Where does the water go?”

Develop – Visitors will enjoy filling a life-size human form with TINKERTOY hubs, providing a great photo opportunity and revealing the elements of a healthy lifestyle – and emptying the piece is fun, too! A special rotating TINKERTOY hub array inspires children to consider the impact of their personal choices, highlighting one of our most important responsibilities: taking care of ourselves so that we can do anything!

Create– This open play area reserved for children age 3 and older features a spectacular assortment of TINKERTOY pieces – the perfect place to build their imagination. Pictures of remarkable TINKERTOY creations and special tips provide guidance and inspiration.

The Tinker Tank – A walk-in size replica of a TINKERTOY canister is the starting point for the exhibit’s challenging scavenger hunt, a must for those with an eye for detail and a nose for knowledge! The Tinker Tank contains a variety of educational materials that attest to the impact of

About Minnesota Children’s Museum

Minnesota Children’s Museum is dedicated to sparking children’s learning through play. Our vision: “Kids play more. Adults do, too.  We thrive as a happier, healthier and more innovative community through the radiant power of play.” The Museum, which first opened in 1981 and moved to downtown St. Paul in 1995, serves more than 460,000 visitors each year at its locations in St. Paul and Rochester, and reaches thousands more across the state through Smart Play Spots, Storyland exhibits and other programs. As the nation’s leading developer of traveling children’s museum exhibits, the Museum is a trailblazer in creating immersive learning environments, reaching more than 10 million children and adults in the United States, Canada and Mexico through the nation’s largest collection of children’s traveling exhibits. The Museum is consistently rated as one of the top children’s museums in the country by national media outlets such as Forbes and Parents and was named as a finalist for an Institute of Museum and Library Services Medal of Service, the nation’s highest honor conferred on museums and libraries. Follow Minnesota Children’s Museum on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and visit our Power of Play blog.

About the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum

The Betty Brinn Children’s Museum is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing educational resources that promote the healthy development of children in their formative years – from birth to age 10. The Museum’s mission is supported by the development of age-appropriate, hands-on exhibits and programs for children, and adult education programs that focus on early childhood brain development, learning styles, parenting skills and how the Museum environment can be used to promote a young child’s cognitive, emotional, social and physical growth. The Museum has benefited more than 2.2 million children and adults since opening in 1995. About the General Electric Company GE (NYSE: GE) is a diversified infrastructure, finance and media company taking on the world’s toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, medical imaging, and television programming, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.ge.com.

About PLAYSKOOL®

Since 1928, PLAYSKOOL, the infant/preschool toy division of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS), has provided toys that help infants, toddlers and preschoolers develop and learn as they play. PLAYSKOOL believes that play is the first and most important building block for all learning, and encourages parents and grandparents to play with their children every day.

About Hasbro, Inc.

Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) is a worldwide leader in children’s and family leisure time products and services with a rich portfolio of brands and entertainment properties that provides some of the highest quality and most recognizable play and recreational experiences in the world. As a brand-driven, consumer-focused global company, Hasbro brings to market a range of toys, games and licensed products, from traditional to high-tech and digital, under such powerful brand names as TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, CRANIUM and WIZARDS OF THE COAST. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at http://www.hasbro.com. (C) 2017 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.