Month: March 2014

Have you ever wondered what the MM mentors do when they’re not at Michigan Makers?

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Haven’t you ever wondered what all the Michigan Maker mentors do while they are not with you? Attend and participate in awesome MakerFests of course! What is a MakerFest? A MakerFest is an event with a ton of different stations where people can around and experiment with the latest technology and create a lot of different technology related things. It’s basically a large scale Michigan Makers. And yesterday in the Michigan Union’s Pendleton Room, the Center for Campus Involvement and the School of Information put on the first-ever MakerFest event!

So what exactly was at this MakerFest event? Activities included:

  • Google Glass
  • 3D Printing
  • Crochet
  • Arduino
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Shrinky Dinks
  • Cookie Decorating
  • Squishy Circuits
  • Legos
  • Snap Circuits
  • 3D Scanning
  • Music Tools
  • Computer & Video Game Archives (XBOX 1)
  • Little Bits(KORG)

As you can see a lot of cool things went on. Everyone was quite excited to test out Google Glass, so many people tried them that the battery died! There was also a station where event goers could learn about the all new Bachelors of Information that UMSI recently launched. Check out some photos below of all the things that were created at yesterdays event!


You can check out an awesome Michigan Daily article here that covers the event! And for more information on the School of Information’s new BSI click here!

OF TUMBLEWINGS AND MAKERFESTS

What on earth is a tumblewing?! Alex has been teaching students to make gliders these past two weeks, one of them being the tumblewing. Here is the video that Alex has been using to learn and teach how to make gliders:

Students have been very independent these last couple weeks, which is just what we like to see. They have been developing their own projects, planning them from start to finish, and then making them. For example, Matthew made a hand towel with decorative lace flowers. First, he made the flowers, then he sewed the flowers to a piece of cloth, then he sewed that cloth to a larger square of cloth, which was then sewed to two other squares of cloth. He finished off the towel by trimming away excess material.

Have you ever wondered what Michigan Makers mentors do when they’re not teaching Mitchell students? Well on Wednesday, they hosted a makerfest. A makerfest is an event where all sorts of makers come together to show what they have made and teach other makers the ropes of their craft. Here’s a quote about who hosted the event:

“The Center for Campus Involvement and the [University of Michigan] School of Information teamed up to organize the first-ever Makerfest event. Other participants included the Ann Arbor District Library, Maker Works, U-M Computer and Video Games Archive, and Michigan Makers.”

Michigan Makers 3/17/14

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Hey guys! Last week at Michigan Makers we had some really cool new activities and brought some some favorite old ones. We had a “Project Runway” part 2 where we upcycled big shirts from the Salvation Army. We brought back some old favorites: Little Bits and LEGOs. But I think perhaps the coolest thing we had was a 3D Doodler! What is a 3D Doodler? Well it’s essentially it allows you draw in colored plastic. It’s kind of like a hot glue gun except plastic is coming out not glue and bonus it’s not hot to touch when it comes out! Check out the 3D Doodler station below.

BACK FROM BREAK!

This week was our first class after University of Michigan’s winter break. It was a little tough for everyone to stay focused, and two adults were absent due to illness. Because we didn’t get to go to Mitchell last week, we gave all of the students bags of materials to make things for this class. Most students made all kinds of cool things, but forgot to bring them in today (but said they’d bring them next week). Some students forgot to make things, but said they will when they get a chance. The students that did bring in their creations got to show them during our closing meeting.

PictureHere Miles is showing his six-wheeled car that transforms into a flying contraption. He also made a penguin.

You might notice that many students are wearing necklaces here. That’s because Kristin, the woman in charge of Michigan Makers went to Hawaii and brought back Kukui nut necklaces. Before electricity, Hawaiians would burn the nuts for light. These days, the Kukui nut is a sign of knowledge. We had some guests today, and so students could wear Kukui necklaces to show that they were okay with being asked questions. The guests from Hillel Day School enjoyed seeing how students explore and work in Michigan Makers.

The activities for today were stop-motion animation, making things with materials from the scrapbox, snap circuits, name stickers, choose your own adventure story-writing (or just creative writing), using the sewing machine to make a pull-tie bag, being the reporter, and building with Legos.

Missing Legos this week?

https://www.buildwithchrome.com/

Build with Chrome via kwout

Hey Michigan Makers! I know we haven’t had legos in a while and since we didn’t have Michigan Makers this week I thought you might be interested in Build With Chrome! What is Build With Chrome? Build With Chrome is digital lego building! It’s the largest Lego set in the world, you have the ability to change brick size and shape and color, it’s like building with actual Legos except on your computer and you actually have every piece you could imagine! Even better you can train to become a Master Builder and follow challenges the site has. As well as view creations users have made for a little bit of inspiration. We’ll be working with Build With Chrome in the future so feel free to familiarize yourself with it so you’ll be ahead of the game! It’s very easy and extremely fun. Simply click the interactive photo above to take you there, happy building!

Unleashing Creativity with Pixton : THE RESULTS!

Our makers have been hard at work these last few weeks working with Pixton to create awesome unique comics. Well now here are the results, you can officially call yourself author now. Take a look below at all of your hard work.

What should we bring next week?

Hey guys! There was no Michigan Makers this Monday(3/3/14) but last week you all answered what you would like to see more or and the results are in! Here’s what you can look forward to in the next coming weeks:

Good news, we’ll for sure be bringing next the Cameo next week and working on designing your own t-shirts! Start thinking of some super cool designs to put on them.
Images © 2015 Regents of the University of Michigan. Text available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise stated. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of​ ​Museum and Library Services RE-05-15-0021-15.