About Us

Educator and author Ryan Jenkins leads Wonderful Idea Company, a creative studio developing resources to support the exploration of art, science and technology through making and tinkering.

Wonderful Idea Company works with a wide network of partners and collaborators. We have built exhibits that have been displayed at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, OliOli, The Amazeum, Tullie House and more. We developed and facilitated a summer program in Saudi Arabia engaging more that 200 teens with art, science and technology. Our professional development workshops have been attended by hundreds of educators and these sessions have explored topics ranging from art machines to Micro:bit to processing to Rube Goldberg style chain reactions. We have traveled from Dharamshala to Dubai and Toulouse to Taipei to work with inspiring educators. Together with our partner, we help to create the next generation of hands-on, constructionist, tinkering-based exhibitions, kits, activities and environments.

Wonderful Idea Company was founded in 2017 by Ryan Jenkins and Nicole Catrett building on their decades of experience creating inspiring environments, engaging exhibits and impactful professional development workshops at The Exploratorium, a leader in field of STEM education. During their time at the Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio, Ryan and Nicole co-developed exhibits and activities that have been used, adapted and remixed in many libraries, classrooms, makerspaces and museums.

Who We've Worked With

Amazeum // Ars Electronica // Benesse Corporation // Brandeis School of San Francisco // Brightworks // Cabaret Mechanical Theatre // CEISMC at Georgia Tech // Chabot Space and Science Center // Chibitronics // Connecticut Science Center // The Contemporary Jewish Museum // Deutsches Museum // Dharohar // Dokk1 // Elztal Museum // En hemmelig klub // ETH Zurich // Experimenta // Google // Joylabz // Juniors Center of Art and Science // Karkhana // KID Museum // The LEGO foundation // LEGO group // Lodestar Community Charter School // MAKE Magazine // Makerlab Extreme // Manylabs // MIT Media Lab // Moving Toys Workshop // National Children’s Museum // National Taiwan Science Education Center // Nexmap // NEXUS Experiments // OliOli // Peabody Essex Museum // Phaeno Wolfsburg // Storey Publishing // Quai Des Savoirs // Science for Monks and Nuns // Strawbees // Tinkering School // The Tinkering Studio // Tinker Tank // Universum