Tufting and many other Maker skills

I tried a tufting gun in Orlando and I talked to Steph Piper about maker skill trees

Author

Dale Dougherty
November 22, 2024

The other side of tufting

Table of Contents

Tufting

At Maker Faire Orlando, I was asked: “Have you ever done tufting?” No, I replied. I watched a young man do it and then it was my turn to use a tufting gun. “Press hard into cloth,” said my instructor from the MakerFX makerspace. It was quite fun.

A tufting gun demonstration

Wikipedia describes the process of tufting: “The yarn is fed through a hollow needle, that penetrates the stretched cloth backing for a modifiable length.” The tufting gun automates this process. It is used to make rugs, for instance, but this freeform tufting using two different colors of yarn was more like scribbling on a canvas.

One of my tufting lines.

A tufting gun would be a nice addition to a makerspace. The Easy Tuft tufting gun is sold under the brand name, “We R Makers.”

Make:cast - Upskilling with Steph Piper

in 2013, the MacArthur Foundation issued a report on digital badges, inspired by video games where players collect badges. This report opens with:

In the twenty-first century, learning takes place almost everywhere, at all times, on all kinds of paths and at all kinds of paces. With the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen, young people and adults can access a wealth of information, analyze it, and produce new knowledge at any time. They can do this, moreover, on a “just-intime” basis, getting the information they are most interested in, in virtually whatever format they choose.

…

These new learning opportunities raise some important questions: How can young people and adults demonstrate the skills and competencies they have developed? How can teachers and school officials—as well as college admissions officers and employers—ascertain that individuals have developed the knowledge or abilities they consider necessary? How can learners forge their own pathways to further learning? Digital technology offers one promising solution: digital badges.

I recall going to a conference about digital badging organized by the MacArthur Foundation. A education website, openbadges.org, was developed. The Mozilla Foundation was a major player in this effort and developed what it called the Open Badge Backpack — the idea was that a student needed a place to collect badges. Mozilla no longer does that work and Canvas, a large edTech company, offers to convert the Mozilla Backpack to its product, Badgr. It’s kind of hard to tell if digital badges have been widely adopted. My guess is not.

One of the problems I saw back then, in particular related to makers, is deciding what the badges represent. Boy Scout merit badges were often cited as an example of badges that have meaning to the organization as well as the individual. They are well-documented in handbooks, and the process of acquiring badges is supported by the organization. The main point, though, is that merit badges were earned, not just given out like candy.

old merit badge handbooks (stalking!)

With that as background, I spoke to Steph Piper last August about her work to develop “maker skill trees.” I was really impressed by the work she had done to organize and design a repository of skill trees and involve others so that there is now a collection of over 60 skill trees. She also was inspired by badges from video games.

Steph had printed a few copies of a book that explained how to use skill trees and provide a collection of maker-specific skill trees. That conversation led to Make publishing her book, Skill Seeker Maker Edition. What Steph has done is an amazing achievement that I believe can benefit the entire maker community. She has named sets of skills for area such as 3D printing and laser cutting that individuals can use to assess their skills and groups can use to promote skill-sharing.

My conversation with Steph Piper is available now as a podcast and a YouTube video, both of which you can find linked off this article on Makezine. Steph describes herself as a creative technologist who manages the library makerspace at University of Southern Queensland in Australia. She also produces electronic kits for children at Maker Queen.

Upskilling: An interview with Steph Piper

What maker skills do you have? What maker skills would you like to acquire? Steph Piper has been thinking about upskilling, and inspired by video games,

makezine.com/article/maker-news/upskilling-an-interview-with-steph-piper

Fireside Chat with Steph Piper on December 3

You are invited to join Steph Piper and me for a live Fireside Chat on December 3. We welcome your questions and ideas about how you might use maker skill trees.

We will also be joined by two guests who contributed skill trees:

  • Billie Ruben:  A maker of many kinds, Billie loves blending digital fabrication with traditional crafts, and trading skills in the online maker communities she has helped to lead.  Billie currently works for Lightburn Laser and put together the Laser Cutting Skill tree. 

  • Luke Henderson: Luke is an edutech expert with an international career from M5 Stack in Shenzhen to Vex Robotics and now Maker’s Empire in Australia.  Luke created the Robotics Skill Tree. 

Podcast about Maker Faire

Speaking of podcasts, I was interviewed about Maker Faire by Daniel Roth on the Event Explorer podcast.

Here are some links to the podcast:"

Wefunder Update

Our Wefunder is now public, after going through a family and friends private time. We have over 500 individuals who have invested a total of over $228K. Here is the link to the Wefunder page for make:

It’s good to see so many people participating in this community round and the positive comments that funders leave help us see what we do through the experience of the community we serve.

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

I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas, projects or news items about the maker community. Email me - [email protected].