According to a recent survey, we have more free time but we mostly waste it, watching TV or not even doing that much. On his Substack, Derek Thompson writes in “Everything Is Television” that “everything that is not already television is turning into television.” In social media and even AI, we are viewers, not creators. We don’t use the communications technologies to connect to each other; we mostly use them to watch streams of videos, which we allow algorithms to choose for us. Meta’s Vibes and OpenAI’s Sora “are AI social networks where users can watch endless videos generated by artificial intelligence.”

Over the years, one of the questions I get about making is “How do people get the time to do those kinds of things?” The answer is they make time. Literally. They prioritize giving themselves time to do work that they find satisfying. I understand that balancing time with work and family commitments can be difficult but it is a matter of choosing to use your own time wisely and too many of us, according to Thompson, are satisfied just watching TV. A creative life driven by your own interests and curiousity can be so much more rewarding.

Derek Thompson mentions Ben Thompson who called out the 90/9/1 rule: 90 percent of users consume, 9 percent remix and distribute, and just 1 percent actually create. Let’s not just be consumers. I dream of world where makers are the 90 percent, not the one-percent.

Table of Contents

• Maker educator and makerspace developer

• Vol: 95 Launch Party

• All the marbles

• Maker Faires this weekend

Maker educator and makerspace developer

I published a podcast/video conversation with Sarah H. Chung who is in charge of Maker Learning at the Center City Public Charters in Washington, DC. You can find links to the Make:cast podcast and a YouTube video on Makezine.com.

Sarah was hired for her experiences as a maker educator, but learned that she had to oversee the design and construction of a new 20,000-square-foot makerspace, which was to be shared by six schools in the network. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:

Sarah: When I interviewed for position, I learned that [the makerspace] was a construction project; that the space was being built and it was planned to be a 20,000-square-foot space to serve six schools. So I thought, wow, what an amazing opportunity that is to help build something that is starting from the very beginning.

Dale: Did you find there were different perceptions of what a makerspace would be, and you had to converge some of those perceptions, but also change some of them? 

Sarah: Yeah. It was a lot of trying to figure out how can I show people what a makerspace is when the one that we’re building is not built yet. And so the first thing I did was research around where can we go, and visit. Like I could talk all day long, but to actually see a space that’s equipped and [learn] what kinds equipment are there? So I took a few of the leadership team and arranged a tour of Open Works in Baltimore, which is more of an adult community space. They have youth programs, but it’s a very cool, very well-equipped makerspace that does a lot of amazing things for the city of Baltimore. So we went there and got to just tour everything from like welding studios to the quilt-making machine, to all the different kinds of 3D printers. And that really started to solidify for people like what we were setting out to do.

While working with MakerEd, Sarah also developed a CyberArcade curriculum for the micro:bit.

Vol: 95 Launch Party

Editors David Groom and Keith Hammond of Make: hosted our Vol: 95 launch party, which featured Kit Biggs talking about voice-activated gadgets, Jon Davis showing his Meshtastic devices, Alanna Okun explaining how she knitted a working breadboard, and Helen Leigh talking about the microcontrollers she uses to make musical art. As much as I enjoy seeing makers and their projects, I enjoy even more seeing the fun, supportive interactions among them.

If you missed attending the event live, you can view a recording via the Vimeo link below or on YouTube.

All the marbles

“I really enjoy procedural generation, especially systems designed to work with hardware outputs,” said mechatronics engineer Will Morrison of his Marble Fountain, a sculpture where ball bearings flow down procedurally generated tracks. When he took a job at Formlabs, he had access to their high-quality printers and set out to create the most intricate algorithmic art piece he could imagine. Morrison said that his project pushes OpenSCAD to its limits. 

The main challenges were designing the paths, controlling the velocity of the marbles, and the very important mechanics needed including the lift and bearing system. This seven-month project culminated in a gallery show at New Alliance Gallery.

Amazing piece of work. The code is available on GitHub, if you want to explore the fascinating details of this system.

The Magic Fountain reminds me of Perplexus by Michael McGinnis of Santa Rosa, CA.

Maker Faires this weekend

There are three Maker Faires this weekend. Maker Faire Salzburg takes place on Saturday. In the US, Maker Faire Orlando and Maker Faire Milwaukee are happening.

Here’s a preview article by Make:’s Jen Blakeslee about what to expect at Maker Faire Orlando in its 13th year.

Last week, this happened at Maker Faire Shanghai:

Moments later . . .

Then . . .

Make time for yourself this weekend.

Make Things is a weekly newsletter for the Maker community from Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co