Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Sept. 18, 2025 – The A-State Museum will be hosting STEAMFest 2025 in October, combining what museum officials call its two most popular events.
Jill Kary, curator of education at the Arkansas State University Museum, said the event will involve all things STEAM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, art and math.
“Those kinds of activities are all over the museum and people have made them really fun,” Kary said, noting that there will be outside activities created by A-State students in front of the museum as well. “So, it’s just going to be a very large event, and I hope that a lot of people will come and enjoy playing as they learn.”
Kary said this event is a combination of two of the museum’s most popular events, TinkerFaire and the Arkansas Science Festival (SciFest). She recalled how she and Karen Yanowitz, the director of the Arkansas Science Festival, decided that combining the two events made sense due to their topic overlap.
“It was almost like we had the same event twice with just a different slant,” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Why can’t we combine the two and just make it one huge ginormous event? It would make a whole lot of sense to do that.’ And so, she thought it was a good idea, and we tried it last year calling it TinkerFaire-SciFest.”
While the SciFest focused more on the science aspect of the exhibits and activities, the TinkerFaire encouraged participants to dismantle, invent, or otherwise tinker with gadgets, toys, and other contraptions to learn more about how things work, Kary explained.
However, this year, she said they decided to go ahead and change the name to be a melding of everything, hence STEAMFest 2025 was created.
“I mean, STEAM is what this is all about, and it’s a festival. So, STEAMFest speaks to everything that we’re going to do,” she said.
The free event will be on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the A-State Museum, located on the A-State campus at 320 University Loop West.
“I think sometimes the people think that this is just for small children, and it’s not just for small children. I love it when people come in without kids just so that they can do the activities and have a little fun,” Kary said. “So, bring your date just to have fun. I tell you, there’s always something you can learn, even as you grow older. This is for everybody.”
