Instructor: Jay Mankita
Tuesday & Wednesday
February 24 & 25
1pm - 4pm
2 sessions

Jay Mankita is a maker/educator who facilitates mechanically-oriented maker space experiences for kids and adults. He leads workshops and events through his small arts-in-education maker space-themed company, Playful Engineers, which he founded in 2015. Through these, participants make their own chain reactions, mechanical linkages, crank-driven automata, pencil geometry, and other "artful mechanisms." Jay will be returning as a featured presenter to the 2026 "Automatacon". He lives with his family in Amherst, MA, but travels the Northeast to teach and learn. For this second visit to Castle Hill, Jay will be once again accompanied by his partner and assistant, Susan McGinn.

We supply materials, but if you have a small wooden or cardboard box you'd like to work with, or any small objects you might like to incorporate into your automaton, bring them along!