Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Maker Education Forum Makerspace Explainer: Megan Butcher”.
Hi everybody, my name is megan, as you probably already know, and i’m the maker space resident. So technically, i’m not even an explainer anymore uh. Just putting that out there, that’s what um. So i’m the makerspace resident and i’ve been a part of nightside staff for more or less like four years um. So i want you guys to join me on a photographical timeline of my experience here right.
So when i tell people that i’m a resident, they say – oh well, that’s a resonating like well. You know i live here. This is this is my home. Now that’s what but, basically uh a resident is an explainer who’s kind of been absorbed into a different department within the museum.
So i do kind of live here on the weekends at least um. So we do a lot of cool workshops um here i am there’s a lot of pictures of me by the way so uh and watch as my hair gets fluffier as the ears go on so right now we’re uh yeah, oh so um! Here i am doing one of my first weekend: workshops, uh and our weekend. Workshops are weekly programs where we engage families into product. Oh sorry, not products projects, projects that teach tool and material literacy through design and making. So here i’m just showing a little girl how to approach tools with confidence, because kids are kind of scared when they see oh hammers and nails. I don’t know, i don’t want to get hurt, i’m just a kid, but no you can do it, and here we go hurry all right. So here we don’t just do things just for kids. We also have uh, you know wide age range, and so this whole family here is engaged in our molding and casting workshop. And so i think that our workshops are a really great example of making and making things that are usually not that accessible available to the public, but we don’t even just do like low-tech stuff. We try to do some high-tech things too, that’s my hand um. Here we are soldering, and so this is a really cool, high-tech skill. If you want to build circuits or any kind of electronics, this was from our luminescent nightlight workshop and the possibilities are endless, speaking of which this was a finished product, it has a little photocell thanks and the five i’m sorry. There was a five and a half year old girl who actually made one of these, so she was way out of our age range, but her parents believed in her and she was really confident in her skills and she was able to build her own uh nightlight. So that was really cool because making this for all ages is not just for adults, even though soldering irons, you know very hot, then we have our wild card weekend, and here i was well. Let me tell you what our wildcat weekends are. Um they’re just like our weekend workshops, but they have different ideas and concepts that are not part of our regular programming.
So this one we were melting, some crayons with a heat gun for science. Of course, it’s chemistry uh. You know, phase changes, that’s basics of chemistry.
Right there and the final product was to make a cute little votive candle with crayons, and they were scented that was cinnamon. I remember that one so teaching science through making is a really big part of my job and my journey here. In 2014 i actually joined maker core, which is one of maker, ed’s programs and um. So i wrote out the steps on what it’s like to be a maker core mentor step. One. You choose a youth serving organization and i chose the one. That’S downstairs.
It was cool, though i love corona, um, step. Two, you get a possibility box and it’s just this box full of stuff um from like felt to arduinos all these high-tech low-tech things. You decide what you want to do with those then the hardest thing you have to play with all that stuff, because you have to figure out how to use it step four actively engage the local community again, that’s something i was really into doing, because i was An explainer, that’s what i was used to doing step five you play with some other cool stuff. That was really hard. Let me tell you um, because we just received some new 3d printers, so i had to test them out and make sure that they worked.
So that brings me step six. You have to punch things um yeah, that was inspired by an episode of dexter’s lab. I don’t know if you guys remember, but he made these rings, because his sister kept taking his stuff, so he was punching a waffle. It was really funny, but the science behind this is that i had to prototype 3d printing workshops using tinkercad and eventually we turned it into a weekend workshop. Next, we had make academy, which is one of our summer camps. This was was based on 3d design, and so here one of our kids he’s prototyping cardboard versions of something he will feature in the future 3d print and here’s a similar. The same workshop, they’re now using laser-cut versions of the cardboard versions. It’S a lot of 2d back to 3d back to 2d, it’s really fun, and here it is as a full-fledged workshop that we did the following year. So back to my residency, i have some goals.
Um number one is to instill tool, confidence and competence in young makers to develop and present our fun workshops to people of all ages and origins and to make sure that our programs stay relevant and interesting because everything changes so much all the time. It’S hard to keep up um and my residency is a really amazing platform to develop my personal, professional and creative skills. I love my job.
They pay me to play with stuff, and my final goal is to make sure that kids can also have the same opportunities to explore their creativity and their confidence and to become better makers, um and here’s a sneaker preview. Thank you. Thank you. We did make academy this summer and our kids have their own booth at nightside village. You guys should check them out, they’re, really great and they loved all the work that they did.
So here’s just a little taste of what they’re doing and thank you for listening to me. Talk about myself. .