Connecting Students and the Community through Making
How the Coyote Grange Hall hosted a school Maker Faire in San Jose, CA and celebrated making in the community
A School Maker Faire can be a great way to connect students and families to the many different kinds of making in a community. —DD
by Elise Engelhardt, Organizer of this School Maker Faire
The School Maker Faire at Coyote Grange in South San Jose took place March 14 and it went SO WELL! (Coyote Grange supports homeschool classes and camps currently offered by Rachna Patel who runs RAAC, which offers enrichment program for homeschoolers and after school.)
We had a tamale-making workshop and everyone pitched in to make lunch!
We had around 20 tubs of recyclables, leftover craft supplies, broken toy parts and together with about 5 pounds of hot glue that came together as an amazing variety of scavenged art projects. UV resin and glitter plus a huge variety of molds attracted adults and kids alike to make a variety of jewelry, dice, coasters, cute animal figurines and many other things.
Damaris Davis brought her 3D printed robot comedy team and Katherine Donaldson brought her Robot Choir, both of which have been exhibited at the Bay Area Maker Faire.
Japan Makers group brought 3D printing and AI Tetris.
There was Laser Etching on various coasters and other items.
The Evergreen FTC Robotics team came to show off their robot. APRS Ham Radio was there with demos of an app called Turtletalk.
Out in the garden, we had soap molding in many shapes and colors with toys embedded inside. Kids from Scouting USA showed up to pitch in.
We made Glove Octopi, Paper Rocket Launching, Fold-A-Book projects, Perler Bead Pixel Art, and Giant Bubbles.
We had a “Learn to Solder” booth with Makey soldering badges.
Everybody seemed to be having such a great time. A surprise volunteer stayed even longer than anyone to put away all the tables and sweep the whole hall when we were all dead tired!