Playful Engineers LLC is a small arts-in-education business creating and facilitating hands-on programs centered around play, curiosity, creativity, and learning through making.

In our programs, the kids are the Playful Engineers. They experiment with their own ideas, solve problems together, and design and build artful mechanisms that make things move – accomplishing tasks, sending messages, telling stories, and bringing characters to life. Our programs encourage open-ended exploration and collaboration, while helping kids develop skills, understanding, and confidence through the process of figuring things out for themselves.

Since 2015, Playful Engineers has presented more than 1,200 programs, both in-person and virtual, in schools, libraries, camps, and wherever kids and families gather. We’ve presented more than 100 virtual sessions through Connected North for Inuit, Métis, and First Nations students in Northern Canada, as well as more than 1,000 in-person programs throughout the Northeast, including hundreds of grant-funded sessions through the STARS Residency program and Massachusetts Local Cultural Councils.

Our traveling makerspace programs come to schools and communities throughout the Northeast, while our popular virtual programs can reach kids just about anywhere in the world.

We’re partially based in Amherst MA, a town founded and built on the unceded homelands of the Pocumtuc Nation on the land of the Norrwutuck community. The Norrwutuck community was one of many Pocumtuc Indian towns, including the Tribal seat at Pocumtuc (in present day Deerfield), Agawam (Springfield), and Woronoco (Westfield) to name just a few. The Pocumtuc, who had connections with these lands for millennia, are part of a vast expanse of Algonqiuan relations.

The Team

Jay Mankita: Teaching Artist & Founder of Playful Engineers

Jay Mankita is a teaching artist, musician, lifelong maker, and founder of Playful Engineers. His work lives at the intersection of art, engineering, creativity, and play.

Before founding Playful Engineers, Jay spent many years as a touring musician and songwriter – a background that continues to inform his approach to teaching, improvisation, storytelling, and creative exploration. As a teaching artist, he brings that same spirit of improvisation and experimentation to his work with children, families, educators, and communities.

Jay is also a certified facilitator in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method and a member of the 2026 New England Creative Community Fellows cohort, a program of National Arts Strategies.

Jay also enjoys being a dad, swimming, hiking, dancing, guitar and piano, ping-pong, tetherball, tahini, chocolate, and sauerkraut, but not all at the same time.

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Susan McGinn: Workshop Assistant & Materials Coordinator

Susan has been a teacher in many different settings for elementary through college level programs, developing programs for science museums and environmental education centers, and now for Playful Engineers. She also coordinated the Dance New England summer camp kids program for eleven years, and for four years, the Amherst Family Center.

Susan also enjoys being a mom, and loves gardening, leisurely breakfasts, hiking, music, and reveling in the beauty of the world.

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Merlin Katz: Workshop Facilitator

Merlin has been with Playful Engineers for two years now, but he has always loved building, coding, tinkering, playing, and sharing his love of engineering. In 2023 he won a LEGO competition and got a job as a professional LEGO builder! There, and in many other educational programs for the past three years, Merlin has been able to show thousands of kids what they can accomplish through exploration, patience, and play. This is why Playful Engineers was the perfect place for Merlin to go next. As a traveling instructor, Merlin brings his passion for fun and building to the next generation of tinkerers at Playful Engineers.

Yes, Merlin is his given name! And he really brings the magic to our programs!

Kate Connors: Workshop Facilitator

Kate Connors is a New York-based instructor and creative. They love playing in all forms – building, pretending, games – you name it, they’re down. Kate has lots of experience conducting scientific demonstrations at schools, camps, and private events for kids of all ages, helping curiosity lead to wonder. They grew up doing engineering activities with Odyssey of the Mind, did middle and high school robotics, and worked at the UChicago Fabrication Lab. Outside of the classroom, Kate is often writing, playing with their nephews, or exploring the world.

Kate is bringing their boundless energy to our programs in CT, NJ, and lower NYS!