Often a technology-based extension of DIY culture, Making emphasizes learning-through-doing in a social environment. Encourage re-use of designs by creating, prototyping and testing.

Related Activities

Related Activities
Invent something from random parts
Follow an existing plan
Create a new plan for others to follow
Try a plan using different materials
Tear something apart to see how it works

Badges Needed

Self-Portrait

  • Write a blog post explaining your decisions when constructing a wearable accessory from 5 random parts.
  • Try to complete a DYI project for something unfamiliar.
  • With guidance from someone who has done it before, write a how-to document that explains the code to make a Web piano.
  • Practice drawing techniques on the 3Doodler
  • Take a picture of each individual item from something you disassembled and use those images to make a mosaic of a portrait photo of another camper.

Barn Raiser

  • Invite 7 people to each pick one item from the Misc Box for you to use in a new creation.
  • Annotate a DYI instruction to make it easier for the next person to know what to do.
  • Write building instructions that anticipate common mistakes and encourage the reader to work through them.
  • Organize a scavenger hunt for natural materials to substitute for a DYI project.
  • Safely dismantle a toy and contribute two of its parts to someone else’s random story or invention.

Interfacing Boss

  • At random, choose 7 items from the Misc Box and create a vehicle for a super-intelligent rodent.
  • Tilt shift a photo taken during Geek Camp.
  • Make an Ikea-style instruction book to build a Pinblock creation you made
  • Build something twice, once using substitute parts, and compare the outcome.
  • Reverse engineer a squirt gun.

Scrounger

  • Tell a story about the creation of a Toy Golem
  • After following a DYI instructions, re-write the plan to make it easier for the next person.
  • Create a DYI kit to build an original creation, including instructions and all needed materials.
  • Starting with an existing plan or recipe, investigate possible substitute materials or ingredients and what properties make them different.
  • Take a picture of each part of an object you dismantled, and annotate their Instagram posts as Wunderkammer.

Hackathon

  • Post a picture of 7 unassembled parts and ask 5 specific people to predict what will be made out of them.
  • Write a worst-case scenario to describe the outcome of an existing plan.
  • Test out an original how-to instruction by recruiting another people to try and build from your plan.
  • Starting with a DYI plan, write a one-page post that speculates on the business, social and technical impact of using cheaper materials.
  • Investigate Todd McClellan’s process for ‘Things Come Apart’

Handmade

  • Until you have used at least 5 items, post a picture of three random parts from the Misc Box and augment your invention with the one selected by the first person to respond.
  • Follow the construction directions of someone with whom you recently had an angry disagreement
  • After sending instructions to make something to a friend via email, have them send back a picture with their completed work.
  • Without asking first, create an origami object that you think someone else would want, using that person’s favorite color.
  • Ask someone you don’t know what they were feeling as they took apart something you made for them