Frankenfest

Frankenfest was a new event for us this year. It was taking place in Downtown Angola and was based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that was published in 1818.

Frankenfest was a new event for us this year. It was taking place in downtown Angola and was based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that was published in 1818.

The central hub for Frankenfest was Cahoots Coffee Café where they were having an all day Read-A-Thon of Frankenstein to mark the 200th anniversary of the book. The Read-A-Thon consisted of 50 readers who read for 10 minutes each throughout the day. Cahoots was also where you picked up the Passport to fill by doing various activities located around town.

MaKenzy and I made our first stop at Cahoots, listened to the Read-A-Thon for a bit and got our Passport. Mak also got a photo posing as Frankenstein with the cardboard cutout located outside of Cahoots. We stopped by Then & Now Antiques where we had to answer a question about Frankenstein, we took a selfie with Frankenstein outside of the Brokaw Theatre and also stopped by Bike and Soul and Monument Pizza for stickers to put on our Passport. During our trek, we stopped by Suttons Deli for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a salad and a huge chocolate brownie and then we made our way down to the Carnegie Public Library.

The library was where they had the most kid friendly activities and MaKenzy was so excited to get started. We first made our way to the children’s section of the library where they had several stations set up. At the first station Mak made a hand with candy corn and popcorn and then moved to another table and made a Frankenstein puppet. After she was done with the puppet, she went to another table where she colored Dracula and drew a story in a little book to take home. She had so much fun and they were easy activities where children her age could do them with little help.

After we were done in the children’s section, we moved to one of the meeting rooms where Purdue Extension had activities set up. Here they had more science related activities but the volunteers were great and helped MaKenzy. She went to the Franken-Piano where they had a laptop hooked up to wires and all sorts of ooey gooey and slimy items. MaKenzy was directed to hang onto one end of a wire and touch the various items which would in turn cause the piano on the lap top to play. Tami, with Purdue Extension, then explained to MaKenzy how it worked.

They also had a more advanced station where you could build various apparatuses that would do different things and build a hand that would move. OzoBots, which are code reading mini robots, were also on display. It was so neat watching them go along a map drawn with a marker and special codes that were drawn would make the OzoBot do something special.

The last station that MaKenzy visited was the slime station. It was so cool because when you hit the slime, it was solid and when you touched the slime softly, it was liquid. Mak stayed there awhile playing and making a mess, but the smile on her face was worth it.
After we were done with the science stations, Mak posed for photos with some cool Frankenstein themed items that were on display at the library. We even signed up for a library card while we were there!

After all of the activities, our Passport was full, so we made our way back to Cahoots to turn it in for a prize. MaKenzy was excited to get the bracelet and the volunteers at Cahoots were nice enough to give us one for her sister as well. We went back into Cahoots to listen to the Read-A-Thon for a little longer and we saw Frankenstein! While MaKenzy was too scared to get a photo with him, I thought he looked like and played the part very well!

Even though our Passport was full, there were several other activities that we did not get to. There was a Frankenwalk that was held at the Selman Timber Frame, Frank Look Makeovers were available at the Finishing Touch Salon and there were curatorial talks, displays and characters from Frankenstein at the Cline House Historical Museum.

MaKenzy and I had a great day spending time walking around downtown and partaking in all of the awesome activities!