New Series Added: Hyde Square Task Force and Boston Makers Join Forces to Offer Summer Maker Workshops

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Credit: Dominic Burdick.

Boy soldering an LED display at the February 2014 maker camp at the Curley K-8 School. Credit: Dominic Burdick.

Boy soldering an LED display at the February 2014 maker camp at the Curley K-8 School. Credit: Dominic Burdick.

Credit: Dominic Burdick.

Boy soldering an LED display at the February 2014 maker camp at the Curley K-8 School. Credit: Dominic Burdick.

UPDATE: After the original series sold out in two days, a Thursday series has been added.

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The Hyde Square Task Force and Boston Makers will join forces to offer summer maker workshops for children, teens, and adults.

Starting on Tuesday, July 1st and running through Tuesday, August 12th, these fun, hands-on evening workshops will combine electronics with everyday crafts and require no previous experience with electronics.

The workshops are free and open to the public and will take place at the Youth Community Development Center which is behind the Blessed Sacrament Church and located at 361 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.

Advance sign-up is recommended to ensure a seat. Register for free at http://bit.ly/SM14Makers. All minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times.

The workshops offered are:

Make an Electronic Summer Hat: Impress your friends and family with a hat that lights up, sparkles, and glows in different colors! Participants will create a design for the hat in the first workshop and learn how to sew washable microcontroller into it in the second workshop. Workshop participants need to bring any kind of summer hat they would like to decorate. This workshop requires two sessions to complete the project and will be run on Tuesdays July 1st & July 8th from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Electronic Greeting Cards: Surprise someone by giving them a card that you created yourself that lights up! You will brainstorm a design for a personal greeting card in the first workshop and then create it using conductive paint and an electric battery in the second. All materials will be supplied. This workshop requires two sessions to complete the project and will run on Tuesdays July 15th & July 22nd from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Experimenting with MaKey MaKey: MaKey MaKey is easy to use microcontroller that can be used to replace a computer keyboard so things like bananas and twizzlers can be used to create music when you hook it up to a computer. You will experiment with different materials that can be used to create music with the Makey Makey. All materials will be supplied. This one session workshop will run on Tuesday July 29th from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Drums Electric: You will create 2-3 drums of different sizes and shapes and embed LED lights into so that they light up when you play! All materials will be supplied.

This workshop requires two sessions to complete the project and will run on Tuesdays August 5th & August 12th from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

What is a maker? Makerspaces are community-operated workspaces where people with common interests can create or be “makers” together. This includes people working in 3D printing, art, bicycle building and repair, CNC router, computer-aided design, electronics, electrical fabrication, fashion and textiles, jewelry, lampworking, laser cutting, machinery, metalworking, painting, photography, precision metal machining, publishing or printing, robotics, screen-printing, sculpture, software development, stained glass, sewing & fiber arts, video, welding, woodworking, and many other activities.

There are now makerspaces around the world (http://makerspace.com/makerspace-directory). Greater Boston already has some amazing ones, including Somerville’s Artisan Asylum ( http://www.artisansasylum.com ). So far, there are no makerspaces open to the general public in Boston, so a group of Bostonians in Jamaica Plain are working on opening one in the near future. To find out more or to get involved, sign up for their email list at http://bostonmakers.org.

About Hyde Square Task Force
The mission of Hyde Square Task Force is to develop the skills of youth and their families so they are empowered to enhance their own lives and build a strong and vibrant urban community. For more information, visit http://www.hydesquare.org .

About Boston Makers
Boston Makers serves a diverse community of adults, teens, and children by providing a safe, affordable and collaborative environment, access to mentors, peers, classes, tools and other resources that support the making of things that meld art, technology and culture in new ways. For more information visit http://bostonmakers.org.

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