Nyssa Buning began volunteering in Draper Spark!Lab in the fall of 2015, and she joined our staff as a Facilitator the following year. As a Lead Facilitator, she worked to evaluate the effectiveness of the exhibition’s activities in achieving the Lemelson Center’s educational objectives and to make visitors’ experiences in Spark!Lab as welcoming and worthwhile as possible. Nyssa became the Spark!Lab Network Manager in 2017.
What’s Nyssa's favorite thing about Spark!Lab? "Seeing people use the materials in totally unexpected ways in their inventions always reminds me why Spark!Lab is here," she says. "Most of us look at something and think, 'Oh, this looks like a…' or 'I could totally make this into a…' Sometimes, someone throws all those connections to known inventions out the window and solves the problem in an absolutely new way, and you start to see how inventors think about what could be instead of what already exists."