Makers Gonna Make

Last Saturday I volunteered at She Makes, the first makerfest run by Girl Geek Academy, a newly founded organisation that aims to teach girls, women, ladies and females of all persuasions about nerdy things like startups, coding, 3D modelling and electronics.

Throughout the day, three 'streams' ran simultaneously:

• Wearables - A series of workshops based around two wearable technology kits: a programmable LED belt and Firewalker LED sneakers.
• 3D Printing - An introduction to 3D modelling using Tinkercad and Sketchup, with an opportunity to print the finished model
• Maker - Hands-off talks for the curious about maker culture, wearable tech and 3D printing

I helped out with the 3D printing stream. The participants worked through the self-guided tutorials available for Sketchup and Tinkercad, and Emily, Shristi and I roved around helping participants to download and start using the software, troubleshooting problems and picking up where the tutorials left off. I was definitely hovering on the edges of my own knowledge, but we had a great crowd to work with. The people I spoke with were positive, enthusiastic, and very much willing to work through the problems and challenges. The aim of the day was for participants to create their own interpretation of the She Makes robot, seen here acting as my volunteer badge:

A bunch of 3D printers - including my own Scarface (left) and April's utterly fabulous Hello Thingy (right) - were waiting to print out the results. There were some awesome first-time efforts, including this one and this pair.





















The workshops were broken up by a series of excellent talks:

• Anne Marie Shillito blew my mind with her artistic, creative approach to 3D printing. My 3D printing education has been entirely from an engineering and electronics point-of-view. At my hackerspace, printers are usually used to fabricate parts for other printers, enclosures for electronics and other precision items, designed to fit their task, but not for aesthetic value. As I listened to Anne Marie talk about what artists and designers are doing with additive manufacturing, I realised that there are plenty of people out there who approach this relatively new craft from the same point of view as me. Check out her book Digital Crafts and her website for some serious inspiration.

• Dr. Aakanksha Chhikara talked about the process of developing her exciting new wearable tech product, the Mor Bracelet. And she mentioned that she did some of her prototyping with Scarface - I was a very proud robot mama! Aakanksha also had some great advice about the challenges of being a woman in engineering and technology. She stressed the importance of having a professional network with whom you can blow off steam and find inspiration. It seems librarians have the right idea...

• Kirsteen from Etsy Australia presented on turning your making into money-making. My day job is in library cataloguing, so I appreciated that she talked about using the right keywords to make sure your Etsy listings show up in web searches. She also mentioned that Etsy recently changed their policy to allow 3D printed items to go up for sale in their Handmade section. They consider 3D printers to be the new sewing machines, which I love, because I see 3D modelling and printing as an extension of traditional craft techniques.

• Finally, Scott Phillips (yes, we let blokes in) talked about his work with The Robots Are Coming, teaching school kids to make 3D models using Tinkercad, and print them using his Up printers. He had some great stories to tell and pictures to show.

The day ended with a panel, which I was part of. I got a chance to talk briefly about my paste printer project. Another panellist talked about how important 3D printing and Arduino are for breaking down the financial barriers to product development, which is such an important point. We need to get the word out that these technologies aren't just about making plastic toys and flashing lights - it's an enabler for local businesses.

Overall I LOVED She Makes, and look forward to helping out next time as well. The atmosphere was so welcoming and participatory that even though I didn't know all the volunteers or participants, I really felt like I was amongst friends.

If you missed out or just want to relive the memories, check out the Twitter stream.