Our first workshop in the new, lovely, expanded library in Coopersville was a hit. Here are the resources from the day, including slides.

We started off with a notecard activity to get the participants thinking with their hands. We then dived into the history and aspects of the maker movement, along with our experience.

After asking participants to think about their own communities, we made a flashlight and hacked it into some pretty unbelievable things. (With a junk box that’s been whittled down, even!)

Finally, we had a lightning round of game design followed by tools time where participants got to check out our tools.

Here are all the pictures from the day. Be sure to check out our remaining workshops!

Our third workshop in Alpena was a morning of discussing and participating in design challenges.

After discussing the balance between open-endedness and structure we dove right into a design challenge using Strawbees. Even with this new (to most) material, our participants were inventive and thoughtful.

We then had participants go out in pairs to observe and research their car dashboards as part of a hands-on experience with the design thinking process, from which we get design challenges.

After following the steps to the design thinking process, the participants had Lego prototypes of their dashboard solutions.

We rounded out the day by sharing our puppet paper people, and using techniques such as breath, focus, and weight (these were our materials for this final design challenge!) to perform a skit. Design challenges can be used for any subject area!

Thanks to all who registered! You can find our presentation materials and resources here. If this interests you, sign up for our future workshops!

We arrived in Alpena and so did 115% of our registrants! Wow!

We did started off with a notecard activity with lots of creative objects resulting. After going over the history and theory behind some of the maker movement, we moved into forming community Maker Visions.

We continued in the afternoon with more hands-on activities, including hacking a flashlight with our trusty junk box. Our participants loved the junk box and we had more ideas that surprised and delighted us all.

After an enlightening discussion about how assessment in makerspaces can be useful for gaining support in public libraries, we moved into board game design and a brief tour of tools we like!

Here’s our presentation and other info from the day. Find more pictures in our album here.

Be sure to come later in the week or to other events down the road!

Our last workshop in Frankenmuth was dedicated to hacking, sewing, knotting, artistry, and re-using old clothing! Check out our presentation from that day here.

We started with t-shirt bags, but that was just the beginning. After some of the reasons behind just why we fashion hack, we listed numerous ways we could hack a normal t-shirt, of which Goodwill Outlet has an almost limitless amount.

We spent some time learning about the Silhouette Portrait machine from our gracious host, Pam.

After lunch, we had a lesson on the anatomy of clothing, and plenty of exploration time to hack to our hearts’ content. We closed with a discussion of how to best implement similar programs in different communities and what the challenges would be.

Check out more pictures here!

And if this interests you we’re doing it again a few times this summer!

Our very last workshop in Marquette explored the idea of how libraries can be amplifiers of local craft entrepreneurs.

Here’s a link to all the information, slides, and bibliography we covered.

We focused on Etsy with some exploration time, photography practice, and discussing different communities that already exist around the idea of collegiality amongst a team of sellers.

Finally we had an overview of some different sites that can help budding entrepreneurs get started without having to invest in inventory. For instance, did you know that even without a 3D printer, you can have Shapeways print a model you make? (We recommend TinkerCAD as an easy start to 3D modeling, too!)

Check out our other events this summer — next up: full day fashion hacking in Frankenmuth!

Our second day in Marquette and our first day at the beautiful, enormous Peter White Public Library.

Check out the slides and folder of additional infomation here.

We started the day working through the design thinking process so the participants could have a good handle on both the individual steps and the entire overview of what it’s like to complete a design thinking cycle.

After sending the participants out to observe each other’s dashboards and prototype solutions (with Legos!) to the main problem, we had them discuss problems in their own community that could be solved with the same process.

We hope that this can be a useful way to balance open-endedness with bit of structure and direction, for classroom teachers and librarians alike — or for anyone in the community!

We hope to see you at some of our future events.

Welcome to the UP! Chris Standerford at the Digital Learning Lab Makerspace on NMU’s campus was very prepared to host our first of three days in lovely Marquette.

We started off with a short activity to introduce our approach to conducting workshops (hint: heavy on the activities and a healthy serving of agency, not to mention a good amount of principles to take home and apply!). We had some very creative notecard-pencil-yarn creations! (Here are our slides and files from the event!)

We continued with some background about our experiences and what we’ve learned — focusing strongly on the purpose behind the makerspace and what each person’s individual community needs.

In the afternoon we had more activities that the participants really enjoyed! We made flashlights and then used our (curated!) junk box to enhance and pitch some products. (“Worried about your neighbors or enemies knowing how much ice cream you eat at 2 in the morning? Use Secret Scoop™!”)

Participants finished the day by designing some board games, learning about assessment strategies, and looking through some tools and toys they could make use of, both ours and NMU’s! More pictures can be found at our Flickr album here.

Hope to see you later this week at some of other events, or at future events.

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!

This morning from 10am to noon we had 7 participants from southeastern Michigan attend our inaugural workshop on Creating Design Challenges. We had a good mix of both school and public librarians as well as experience levels.

A collection of documents (rubrics, methods, and slides + a shopping list of materials we used!) is located here!

We started the day off with a short (or “tiny”) Design Challenge based on our Making in Michigan Libraries-created Design Thinking Game. By chance, we were creating something to help a mermaid organize — but wait, we also had to make sure to not introduce new things as our particular mermaid’s constraint was that she didn’t like new things!

In small groups our participants used a material they were familiar with — Legos — to create organizational inventions for our hypothetical mermaid. As we debriefed and continued to think about the why and the how of design challenges, we also discussed best practices for implementing them and different lengths for different focuses.

We then introduced a second Design Challenge with a less familiar — but still inexpensive — material: Strawbees! We changed up our groups for variety’s sake and had participants consider the challenge, prototype, and finally pitch a commercial for the “something to help a fisherman relax”!

We had a great time pitching, even showing off a Strawbee umbrella! Look at our complete album of photos here.

If this sounds interesting (or just downright fun) check out our other events coming up this summer!