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A friend is working with someone on the idea of repurposing cargo containers. They are working with 20’ long containers (because 40’ will not fit in the shop). They are mulling many uses because these containers are really blank slates that we have an excess of (we import more than we export). Their first model is kinda like a weekend hunting cabin (though i think they need a more environmentally sustainable toilet solution). Another idea is hooking together multiples to make a larger living space (320 sq ft side by side ; 640 with a 2x2 stack). Another is a kitchen/restaurant placed next to a building. It might be easier and less expensive than retrofitting a space for a kitchen. You could create a bar/party trailer with a drop down wall for a patio.
Austin, Texas has a container bar. Cargominiums have been put up in Columbus, Ohio. Wichita, Kansas (and other cities) have shipping container “malls”.
Using shipping container has unique zoning issues, same as the tiny home movement. Some of it is a square footage issue, some is portability. There are cities that are embracing these as housing/building alternatives, some are adamant against them. The use of these goes along with one of the exhibits at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. They talk about our changing household demographics and housing costs and housing sizes. They also have a model 1000 square foot home that has “pocket” walls to change size/purpose of rooms. The demo uses multipurpose furniture from Resource Furniture. I like these ideas because we are repurposing an existing resource. I think they could be one piece of the homeless puzzle. I think the “mall” idea could be helpful to local entrepreneurs because the costs should be less. I have been following the idea of agriculture using these. Someone also had the idea of school #MakerSpace in a box like these. I have seen one science lab in a box (the curiosity cube) Not being on wheels can be a positive and a negative. I have seen science labs and makerspaces in a trailer (cleveland mobile fab lab) that are much more portable. So I am not sure which is “better” I also think 3D printing houses would be cool.
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I saw some neat building toys at the National Building Museum gift shop in DC. They were for a variety of ages and styles. Offbits is a kit that uses "spare parts" (screws, bolts, connectors). It comes with parts and instructions to get you started to build a figure or a vehicle. I saw kits from $15-25. I ordered one from Amazon to check it out. Could be a good way to get kids building from things they find in the garage/work bench.      Here are some pics of some other ones that i saw.... I didn't buy any of them.         There are many building toys.
Your #MakerSpace should have some. Just pick one or two and have them accessible to kids. Others that I have found are Qubits Strawbees Zoob Brackitz The classics like Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, KNEX, Lego's are still great. Even something basic like Keva Planks. What other building toys do you like? I have not been to Washington DC in almost 30 years. And even then, I never really toured or saw any of the sites. Luckily I have a cousin who lives just outside and they let me stay with them for a couple of days and showed me how to use the Metro to get in and out of the city (bus from Annandale to Pentagon, train to the Mall or Chinatown). I can see how people (especially kids) can get overwhelmed and over tired. There is so much to see and learn and do. So people try to cram as much as they can into each day. Some places you could spend one whole day. You CANNOT do it all. You really need to pick and choose a few things. I tend to go for the atmosphere and just see things and take pictures ; I only read a few of the placards in a museum. I went the second week of October and it was still hot and humid, I can’t imagine actual summer time. My pictures are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulshircliff/albums/72157700784550091 all with title #DC It was a fortuitous beginning, my cousin having me get off at the stop for Lincoln, not realizing it was also for Einstein and the National Academy of Sciences. NAS had a display of pics of some “ground calibration targets” that our spy satellites used in the 1960’s. Superimposed on them are tracks of current satellite paths. (Ground Truth Corona Landmarks). Then off to see Mr. Lincoln and a walk up the Reflecting Pool to the World War II Memorial. Then I walked around the Tidal Basin. This path houses the Martin Luther King Jr. , Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson Memorials. There are many water features at the FDR. Both MLK and FDR have so many quotes that are pertinent to society today and how we should be living our lives.     I stopped in at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the Federal Govt. started issuing currency at the beginning of the Civil War in order to pay for soldiers and supplies) and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Then took a closer look at the Washington Monument (which is closed for repairs until Spring 2019). Then a look at the National Mall from this end, and the Smithsonian Castle on my way to lunch at the Museum of the American Indian. Wonderful menu of “native” based meals : tacos, burgers, steak, bison, lamb, salmon, quinoa. Just remember that museum food is a bit more expensive. I had a bison steak and it was very good.    After the late lunch, it was back to the touring. First stop was the Air and Space Museum. So much to see here. One interesting thing I learned was an analogy for the electromagnetic spectrum, of which visible light (ROYGBV-the rainbow we see) is a very small part. If visible light was one octave on a piano, the whole spectrum would be 65 octaves. Then back to the Museum of American Indian to actually go through it. Again, so many things to see and learn. One that stood out was that Indians make up less than 1% of our population but their imagery (& influence) can be seen everywhere. They had a couple of rooms showing this, from advertisements to TV to names of everyday items. Now for a walk near the Capitol and the Grant Memorial. Then off to catch the train. By luck, there is the Navy Memorial Plaza next to the train station. As well as a restaurant named “Paul”. The Navy Memorial has a world map in the cement. It would be neat to get an aerial view of this. Day 2. Yes my feet still hurt from day 1. Less outside walking today and more inside museums. I started at the National Building Museum. They had several little kid school groups there, so they must have some focused activities for them. There are a couple of building/tinkering rooms for kids, and they also have classrooms with building materials. They only have half a dozen exhibitions, but they are info packed and important to current society. One is about the impact of evictions. Another is a teen led one about “their space” in community. They have an interesting one about the “Secret Cities” of the Manhattan project. The one I liked best was “Making Room” showing how the demographics of our households and construction are not in line with each other. 53% of our households are singles or couples, yet how much housing is designed for them. We seem to keep building large family homes. They had a model of a 1000 square foot house and displays about alternative housing (micro, tiny, co-housing, co-living)    I went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum & Portrait Gallery (in Chinatown). They have a wide variety of ages and styles. After lunch at the Corner Bakery Cafe, I got on the bus , DC Circulator National Mall route. It took me around the monuments and museums I had walked by and in, but from a slightly different vantage point (and they had USB plugs to charge phones). It only costs $1. The Museum of American History has SOOOOO much. You could spend days. Transportation, innovation, business, protest, war, internment, nostalgia, entertainment, Presidents, food from 1950-2000… and much more.    The final stop of the day was the Museum of Natural History. They have packed a great amount into a relatively small building. Mammals, Oceans, skeletons, humans, butterflies, insects to name a few. There are actually two Air and Space Museums, one on the Mall and one near Dulles. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center has such a variety of small and large flying machines. They have ballooning, helicopters, spacecraft, planes large and small and experimental. They also have displays about engines. I want to replace my kitchen countertops with butcher block. I have made a few cutting boards, so I decided to scale that up to go next to my stove. I mixed maple, cherry and a little bit of mahogany. The size is just under 12-1/2" wide and 31-1/2" long. There are many little steps to doing this and I tried to capture them all on video. Here is the final product.  Steps : 1) cut rough boards to 35" (yes longer than 31.5" so I can cut nail hole off from step 2 and to get square and exact fit 2) get a straight edge on one edge of the 35" boards (use a board with a good edge and table saw... I now have a 50" aluminum strip to do this with so I don't waste an inch on both ends 3) cut the nail/screw hole off 4) rip the 33" boards in about 1" strips (just a bit larger is what I picked ( I was having a little problem with the first 1" or 2" doing this, getting about an extra 1/8" cut off the left piece of wood - something to work on) 5) plane the 1" widths to get them even and smooth (which is why I cut them larger than 1" (some of the maple was having a "tear out" issue, but not all of it. None of the mahogany or cherry had that problem) 6) arrange and glue up (I rip cut two pieces on each top just a little bit so that the boards would be just under 12 1/2" 12 1/2" is the maximum width of my planer) 7) plane the 33" x 12 1/2" tops (plane little by little, 1/64" at a time) 8) cut to length 9) sand 10) 3 coats mineral oil (1 , let sit for a day, repeat) 11) butcher block conditioner (mineral oil and beeswax) 1 or 2 coats (coat, let sit for a day) Now to figure out how to make 24" by 68" countertops and decide on keep the old sink or find a new one.  A cousin requested a cutting board in the shape of Ohio, and then another requested Arizona. The first step is to find an outline of the state. It does not have to be a .svg because the software can take .jpg or .png and turn them into vectors. You do not want something with too much detail, I am using a ¼” bit to cut out the shape, so fine details would be lost. The first issue I encountered was that the software read the outline as two vectors, even though it is a thin line. Luckily I could select one of the vectors and delete it. Next step is to draw lines for the groove inside the shape. This is not going to be “perfect” because of the irregularity of the shapes of states, but using the straight line tool and the curve tool, it comes out okay. Sometimes it is difficult to tell how far from the edge it will be, even with guide dots. Export the cut files, get it all lined up on the CNC router and go. Since the board is 0.80” thick, it will take 7 passes to cut through. Unfortunately on pass 3, the router shifted in the X direction, just by a little. But this meant it was trying to cut through 3 “layers” of cuts at once, and that is not good. Also the board would now have a lip to cut/sand off. I stopped it and sent it back to (0,0) and it was in a different X place than when started. I re-zeroed and finished that board but will have detail work to do. I turned the machine off and on, then zeroed the tip again for the second board. This one came out alright. I don’t know why it change zero half way through the first cut. Time to sand and oil. Next up is to try Arizona.  . One of the projects I have been interested in is making cutting boards. So it was time to buy some new tools for my home shop and learn how to use them. I also bought some tools for my other project, making wooden toy cars. The tools I added to my shop are a 12 1/2" planer, a band saw, a drill press, a belt-disc sander, a spindle sander, and an assortment of clamps. Of course I needed to build a couple of new workbenches to put these on. I will admit that part of my reason for spending money I really don't have is that the feedback from one interview was they wanted someone who already new how to use all the tools in their space, not have a learning curve. But that is a whole other discussion. In "short", here are the steps to making a cutting board. I bought some Cherry and Maple from Woodcraft store. It is a woodcrafters store that has a wide variety of woods for a decent price. It is also where I bought my CNC router. Get one straight edge on boards (boards are rough cut), cut boards to length (I did 16" & 18"), rip cut into strips (i have done 3/4" & 1") , plane strips to have parallel sides, arrange to be less than 12 1/2" wide (planer size), glue up, plane top & bottom to be even and smooth and "pretty" , use CNC router to cut design in board, use jigsaw to cut board to shape, sand, oil, conditioner. I am also working on how to shoot video of the process. I thought I would test out the Apple clips app and a workflow to uploading to youtube. I don't like that Apple Clips shoots video in portrait mode. Though it is easy to use to put video together and narrate if needed. There is one other thing I don't like about Apple : .mov . The .mov format is bulky and cumbersome, I have to run it through iMovie to turn it into a better format (.mp4). So the workflow for now is create in Apple clips, export to camera roll, Air Drop to MacBook, import to iMovie, Export from iMovie, upload to YouTube. Below are some videos. Comments and questions always welcome. I got to visit one of the Nordonia MakerSpaces the other day and talk with Dr. Joe Clark and Matt Gauger about some of the things they are doing across the District. I met them at Northfield Elementary and we talked in the MakerSpace that they have created in conjunction with Camp Invention. They are piloting some curriculum from Camp Invention as well as utilizing the buying power of the camp when they need consumables. In addition to integrating maker in to the curriculum, teachers have created maker challenge cards to extend the learning for the students. The PTA has donated a Lego wall in this space. The flexible seating that they put into this room made many teachers in all of the buildings consider flexible seating. The District has been able to put some flexible seating in every classroom that wanted it. I did not get to tour other buildings, but Maker is happening at all of them. Some buildings have robotics going on. The District has 2 augmented reality sandboxes and are looking to make more, especially since they have a local company that wants to donate the technology and District people who want to build the boxes. One of the buildings has a small room, but because of some double wide hallways, they are able to bring maker materials out into the halls. The MakerSpaces are different in each of the buildings, but most importantly it got people thinking not only about the curriculum but also the learning spaces.
They are talking to local vendors and industries to make connections for their students, whether that be internships or just tours to see how things work. They really feel that each building is unique in the community relationships it can have and are trying to foster them for student learning. They do not want to always be asking for money, rather they want partnerships in the students education. Keep up the good work. MAKE the world better It was an energetic and excited bunch that showed up on August 4th for the inaugural #EdcampNEOmaker at Strongsville High School. The event was planned by Michael Feldman, Connie Fasig, Vicki Turner, Mrs. Geeky and myself. All the attendees did a great job of contributing session ideas and participating in the sessions. Edcamps can be difficult at first because they are not presentations, they are conversations. But people got into that flow quickly. There we great discussions going on. People talked about sewing , music, computers k-5, various ways to start a MakerSpace, time management of learning tools, using the space to empower students with different abilities, Fablab in ELA & SS, what’s after Lego’s, community engagement, inside gardening, and greenscreening. That is one thing I like about Maker Education, it is so broad in its applications and implications. That is also the difficult part of Maker, it is a wide field with almost too many possibilities. We only did a morning set of sessions because we did not feel we could provide breakfast AND lunch. We had some things set out for a sandbox (paper circuits, flipgrid, green screen), but there was no real time to play with these. We need a playground session, or maybe a lunch and playground time if we find more sponsors. The Strongsville HS library is an awesome facility. It is large and has open spaces, but is also big enough to have divided spaces. High tables, low tables, tall seats, comfy seats. It was easy to spread out our groups. They also have some small rooms with glass walls for Maker equipment for sewing, greenscreening, 3D printing. Feedback was good from our participants. All enjoyed the morning and learned from it. Lisa said “This was excellent! I thoroughly enjoyed the sharing! Thank you again!” Christine said “Great pd and opportunity to collaborate and communicate with like missioned people. “ Molly said “Thank you for doing this. I loved making the connections with like minded educators. “ Connie mentioned “I would love more content specific session or how to tie into content areas “ I think larger numbers in the future will help get a wider variety of sessions. We can always do more with “advertising” the event.
The first weekend in August might not be the best time for the event. Back to school shopping, last weekend or two before school starts, community football days, sun & beach… But it is hard to find/pick the “right” time for any event. The majority of attendees replied that “before the school year July-September” is best, followed by “during the school year September - December”. We had 35 people sign up on Eventbrite, but only 17 showed up. I knew everyone would not come, but the turnout was lower than I expected. More promo and maybe a better date for 2019. We will see.
Until “next year” - MAKE the world a better place
Did a few things on my annual trek to Wichita. They obvious one was #PodStock18. A great education conference where I get to meetup with some “family”. My biggest take away from the conference was I need to research Boy Scout/Girl Scout badges in some depth. Badges & microcredentialing have a future in education, particularly #MakeSpaces.
I also went to Wichita State University GoCreate space ( http://gocreate.com/ ). They are almost 2 years old. I think their pricing for monthly membership is a bit high ($125 for community, $83 for students & staff). They have a wide array of tools. Many sewing machines, multiple 3D printers, several vinyl cutters or printers. They seemed to have singlets of the metal work and wood working tools. Big space, clean space. They also had some rentable office space on the second floor for start up businesses, trying to help and promote entrepreneurship. I lucked out that this weekend was the Wichita Mini Maker Faire at the Exploration Place. I think they had a great mix of businesses and DIY / hobbyists. There were local businesses doing some maker stations for kids, as well as businesses that create showing what they do. How many Maker Faires have the fireworks company talking about making fireworks? Their were local artists showing how they create and some selling their wares. Several of them were young (teen & pre-teen) entrepreneurs. There were lots of places spread around for kids to be making , or unmaking, things. So many ideas around the place. We are under construction this year. Remodeling, revamping, always trying to make it better. So the program was in the form of blueprints. (PodStock is organized by the awesomely creative and visionary people at ESSDACK.  2 ½ days of great discussions with people that are and want to make a difference, make education what it can be. Day one started with networking, vendor visits (there are only a few and they have good conversations) and the Kevin Honeycutt keynote. Lunch with old and new friends, no one goes alone (unless you are an introvert and really need some processing time). The afternoon had 3 hour sessions on a wide range of topics. PBL, Maker, VR/AR, STEM, Gaming. The idea of the 3 hour is more depth but also work time : here are the ideas and new learning. Now with people around you to help, what are you planning to do with these new ideas. We held a 10th birthday party for PodStock with cupcakes and party games and presents. Then a night out at a local establishment with some live music. Then #LobbyChat. Some of us just hang out in the hotel lobby and talk about stuff. Life, school, whatever. Day two had 1 hour sessions in the morning and 3 hour in the afternoon. Again a myriad of topics : Badging, prototyping, coding and ELA, making parody videos, AR, incorporating tech, making an iPad scanning stand, PBL, Professional Portfolios, student digital footprint, coding, creating a buzz worthy classroom, Blended Learning, Entrepreneurship, Poverty & Trauma, Microcredentials. Lots of conversations and sharing. At night we had a dance/karaoke combo, then more #LobbyChat. Day three (1/2 day) was time for us to process and really look at what we learned and how we can help each other take the next step. Some large group discussions and some table talk. I got to play “angry anna” and shoot down all the reasons to go 1:1 (the “new” idea “our” school was implementing) while everyone else had roles of being helpful, being empathetic, troubleshooter… someone had the best “argument” against 1:1---- “We went 1:1 with textbooks years ago and that didn’t help student learning”. So maybe it is not about THE resource, but what you do with multiple resources? Culture of Learning popped up in several discussions. PodStock connects you with people who love having these discussions and love supporting each other. Then it was over and we went to a final lunch with friends as other friends scattered to get home. Always over too soon. One of my big take aways was a badging idea. I like badges and microcredentialing as alternatives to grades and ways to get more project base learning (and for makerspaces with the wide variety of tools and skills) . One of the speakers, who was an English teacher, used the 137 Boy Scout badges as choices for student research projects. These are awesome because they have some frameworks for students to work with, they are authentic and cross curricular by nature. They involve making and writing. This was the first time he had no plagiarizing and students wrote more AND better than they had in the past. ESSDACK is doing work with the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4H in regards to their badging systems in order to help schools understand and use them. Thank you ESSDACK for another great conference. |
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