Open Make Session 4

Please read all about the Open Make Session at the Exploratorium on the new Young Makers blog here.

This is a new blog which will focus on general Young Maker activities, as opposed to those specific to our area. I hope you'll read it and be inspired to create.

Open Make Session 3

"You learn how to do things by screwing up—so don't be afraid. If you've got something you want to make and you don't really know what you're doing, just do it; you learn by making mistakes." 

 ~Jay Broemmel, art bike creator

It was again a rainy day driving in to San Francisco for the Open Make Session on metal, but it was well worth the drive. One of the first things we encountered walking through the Exploratorium was this reindeer bicycle:

The same artist, Jay Broemmel, had also made the Golden Gate—

—and a red fiberglass dragon with rotating light-up eyes.

You can see more of Jay's bike creations at the Meet the Makers talk webcast here. Other speakers included Tim Hunkin, David Cole, and experienced Young Makers Sam and Alex. All of these speakers are hard to define in a phrase, as they are each and every one people of diverse interests and abilities.

The theme of how everyone began to make things was particularly strong this month, as Jay showed his childhood model of an Imperial Walker from Star Wars and Tim demonstrated Gladys, the Burglar Catcher, a robot he made at age 11 (the first machine shown in the video link). Sam and Alex showed a number of their previous projects, which they expressly chose with the aim of learning a new skill each year.

A few common themes have evolved from all the speakers over the last three months: Just start, even if you're not sure what you're doing. Expect to make mistakes and learn from them. And have fun. Good advice for almost any endeavor, really.

Back at the plussing session, projects were in various stages:

marshmallow gun

plans for scale model house

a go kart

drawings for the Rubens' Tube

homemade vacuum former to make pieces for the Metroid costume

Tony emphasized that projects should be more or less display-ready at next month's Open Make. He talked about the lull that one experiences after the initial excitement of starting something new. Tony's advice? Expect it, and keep going. Tell yourself you'll only work for 10 minutes. Michelle also emphasized that a project can be modified or scaled down if it helps you to finish it.

I know that all the projects in Young Makers Yolo are still at the beginning stages, so imagine there will be a pretty big push over the next few weeks. In our house at this moment one child is programming his Arduino boards and another is building a new circuit prototype.

At our next meeting, we'll talk about the projects and what is needed to bring them to completion.

Exploratorium Open Make Session 2

"It's really about how well we can play together." ~Josh Short from Cardboard Institute of Technology

What can you make with cardboard?

You can make miniature buildings, adding paint and architectural features, even scaled photos of actual doors and windows.

 Stack the buildings, and you get something else altogether:

You can make masks and props:

Surfboards:

Full-sized medieval gates:

You can even make yourself into a giant robot:

Saturday's Open Make session was all about cardboard. Cardboard feels like the most egalitarian material, being both abundant and intuitive to work with. There probably isn't a child alive who hasn't cut apart a box and taped it back together to make something or another. Cardboard is both pliable and sturdy, lightweight and solid, flat and textural. It is easy to glue and paint, to cut down or build up to any size.

The speaker session included this cardboard stop-motion video:

If you want to listen to the hourlong speaker session in its entirety, the webcast is here.

Just as inspiring was the plussing session. Young Makers from the Bay Area presented their projects in whatever stages they were in. Sometimes this meant printouts from the web, sometimes there were drawings or wiring diagrams, and a few were in the first stage of creation.

John and Alex (and also Sam, who was skiing) plan to make a Ruben's Tube.

Isabella is working on a K'nex horse which will accurately show the motion of a running horse by turning a single crank.

Joseph is refining his Halloween Metroid costume.

And Savannah, along with her mentor Sara, were making a music visualizer.

There were also plans for go karts, a secret-knock gumball machine, and a power-saving mechanism to turn off electrical power to appliances when the room is unoccupied.

Whether they had begun working or not, all the Makers were articulate in describing their projects and what they wanted to do next. Those who had begun the iterative process were also clear about what they wanted to improve.

We left inspired to begin projects and meet up with our group again.

Exploratorium Open Make Session 1

"Behind this is just a natural curiosity in what's around us."—Dale Dougherty

Yesterday was the first of the Exploratorium's Open Make sessions in conjunction with the Young Makers meet up. There is so much to see and do at the Exploratorium that it was hard to make it all the way to the Tinkering Studio in the back, but eventually we got there. C was drawn to making a membranophone from a film canister, pvc pipe, a piece of latex glove, and the top of a small water bottle. It actually makes a pretty wonderful sound.

We got so caught up in doing things that we were late to the plussing session, arriving just in time to hear Tony talking about a rough timetable: exploring ideas in January, narrowing them down by February, having a pretty clear project plan by March, and making good progress on the project by April.

Every Young Maker at the plussing session received a Maker's Notebook in which to track their project. The notebook is like a Moleskine with graph-paper pages, a sleeve in back containing two sheets of maker-oriented stickers, and a short reference section which encompasses everything from common technical abbreviations to adhesive charts to lists of Mercury Retrogrades and best places to dumpster dive. The kids were all over these.

After lunch, we headed for the McBean Theater to listen to the Featured Maker Interviews. The tiny auditorium was packed; you can actually get a better view via the webcast here.

At the end, the floor was opened for questions for the Makers, among which were:

1. What is your favorite tool?

• Answers: wire stripper, vise grip pliers, hot glue gun, my fingers.

2. What inspires you?

• Two of the makers were quick to mention their dads.

3. Have you ever made a working miniature car?

• —which drew laughs from the audience, until two of the makers answered 'yes' and a third mentioned his Beagle Chariot!

4. . What's the biggest creative challenge and how did you overcome it?

• Shawn talked about the importance of iteration, meaning you do the project as many times as necessary, acquiring new information and reworking after each attempt.

5. What is your success-to-failure ratio?

• Lanny: "The iterative process means you never fail. One hundred per cent success rate!"

The focus of this year's Open Make sessions will be on materiality. All the makers interviewed yesterday worked in some way with plastic, and plastic was the theme in the tinkering area, as well. 


In February, the featured material will be cardboard; in March, it will be metal; and in April, wood. This reminded me of an upcoming Nova series that we were thinking of following: Making Stuff, which premieres January 19 on PBS. It might coincide nicely with upcoming Open Make sessions.