Thursday, June 15, was our only daylong design thinking workshop of the summer! We met at Niles District Library to use the design thinking method to redesign dashboards, do customer research to make a better bag, and practice design thinking to solve problems.

You can view the slides and resources here.

Here are some photos from the day …

Our opening activity: the design thinking game. The prompt: make something for a dinosaur to wear on its feet. A solution: create these strap-on accessories that allow dinosaurs to disguise their footprints (aren’t they always just plodding through all that mud that gets fossilized? Talk about evidence!). Think they’re not smart enough to remember to strap them on? That’s why there’s a supplemental brain that can be implanted (bottom left).

Doesn’t every workshop send you out to the parking lot to gather data about your dashboard so you can design a better one? Here’s someone’s notes …

Here’s a design thinking solution: a LEGO prototype of a USB drive that you can insert into the car so it can recognize you and auto-adjust the wheel, seat, and other items.

Use junk box materials to design the perfect bag (with a few LEGO wheels thrown in for good measure). Check out the telescoping handle!

This prototype includes a padded pocket, a water bottle holder, and a flap that can lower to reveal specialized pockets.

Not everyone needs a perfect bag … some people need a travel jacket instead, with pockets in all the right places.

Design the perfect bag? How about this one that stores a jacket and a zip-on sleeping bag.

Tomorrow is out last Niles workshop of the day … design challenges in the morning and grantwriting* in the afternoon!

*Note: Our funding precludes us from assisting on any official grant application, but we can give general advice!

On Wednesday, June 14, we were excited to have a full-day workshop on the Big Ideas of the maker movement and maker culture for librarians and educators at the Niles District Library.

You can view the slides and our resource folder here.

Here are a few photos from the day …

Making a paper flashlight after working on a maker vision statement.

Hacking the flashlight!

Perusing books about the maker movement at the end of the day.

Robot Mouse for young children got taken for a spin.

Hope to see you at one of our upcoming workshops!

This Thursday we held a workshop on Fashion Hacking, using used clothes to create new and useful things!

We began by talking about the environmental, social, and financial benefits to fashion hacking, and then moved right into hands-on hacking! 

For this workshop, we focused on thinking about the anatomy of clothing – the different fabric pieces that make up clothes, and how those pieces can be adjusted and rearrange to create new items. People ended up making bags, shirts, skirts, backpacks, and even wigs!

Thanks to everyone who came out, and if you are interested in our slideshow, handouts, or further fashion hacking resources, they can be found here. If you are interested in attending any of our future events, including more fashion hacking later this summer, those events can be found here.

This week we went up to Houghton Lake for an afternoon of library making with their middle schoolers!

We brought up a sewing machine and a button maker for the kids to try out.

They got to make small suede wallets and learn how to use the sewing machine, some of them putting their own creative twist on the wallet!

Over at the button making station, the kids had to option of cutting out pictures from magazines to make buttons, or drawing their own pictures for the buttons!

Thanks to everyone who turned out for this program, and thanks to the Houghton Lake Public Library for having us! We had lots of fun and it was so great to see what the kids came up with!

On Tuesday, June 6, we held a workshop on using Google Cardboard for librarians and educators around Ann Arbor.

We discussed the possibilities of using 360 video and Google Expeditions (thanks to North Quad and U of M ITS for helping us out!) in libraries.

We also spent some time — since we are makers at heart — creating our own panoramas and Photospheres using free apps with Google Cardboard.

If you want to check out the slides from that event, find them here.

If you’d like to come to any of our future events, find them here — we’re just getting warmed up!

We had the pleasure this week of running a puppet making workshop right here in Ann Arbor! We focused on the Bunraku style of puppetry, which originated in Japan and is known for its naturalistic movements. The slides and resources for this workshop, including the instructions for puppet making, can be found here.

We started out making tabletop puppets, to get used to the process and to experiment with Bunraku-style movement – focusing on the breath, focus, and weight of the puppet.

These puppets were made from printer paper and invisible tape, with optional paper clips to help control the arms.

After that, we moved on to making near-life size puppets, this time using newsprint paper and masking tape.

Our participants made quick work of the large puppets and soon enough we were acting out skits with the Bunraku style of puppetry, which requires three people to control one puppet. From business men on the moon to nurses in a 1920s speakeasy, the puppets began to come to life!

Now these puppets can take a well-deserved break after their morning of hard work. Thanks for everybody who came out, we had blast working with you all! Again, the resources can be found here and if you are interested in attending our other workshops this summer, they can be found here.