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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

This week, we continued with many of the same activities (sewing, story writing, scrap box, and independent projects), but a new addition from last week was the Cameo, which is basically a printer that cuts out shapes instead of printing things. Students layout designs or letters in the software for the Cameo, and then insert the appropriate paper with a plastic backing. The machine has a little knife inside that cuts along the path that the student made and the final output is… A Sticker! After one class with the Cameo, one of our students, Malek, took over teaching others how to use the Cameo!

We had a lot of fun working with the Cameo last week. Last week(2/24/14) everyone started learning how to work with the Cameo Design Studio and got the hang of it really fast. We covered the basics of tracing images, adding text, grouping, ungrouping, and welding. We had two Makers create some awesome scary faces. You may recognize one of them as Jack Skellington from the film The Nightmare Before Christmas!

We made some awesome stickers with silver contact paper and the always fabulous Cameo again this week. There was a clear trend this week as all the boys went for basketball related. Everything from Nike and Jordan logos, to a “BASKETBALL FOR LIFE” sticker. Everyone had a lot of fun experimenting with different shapes and got to learn a bit more about how to weld, group, and ungroup objects in the Cameo Design Studio.

Everyone was bobbing there heads along as James and a few makers created some awesome tunes with Little Bits.

Check out this awesome comic above, one of our very creative makers made with Pixton last Monday!