2016 Maker Corps - Now Hiring!

Would you like to spend a summer inspiring and motivating children and youth to become avid makers? 

If you are at least 18 years old, and have some experience with Maker Education and are interested in building your maker resume, learning new skills, and becoming part of a national network of makers, apply now!  Our ideal candidates have a passion for educating youth; an interest in facilitating student centered learning by making things; and enjoys collaborating with people of all ages and backgrounds. We need someone with excellent leadership and communication skills; the ability to mentor others; and the ability to interact effectively with children, adults, parents, teachers, and co-workers required.

Our Makers must be comfortable presenting in front of large and small audiences, including one-on-one interactions.  Leading Maker Camps is a strenuous job both mentally and physically. 

We are looking for two Maker Corps Members that will serve as camp leaders,  mentors and role models in our Maker Camps.    Maker Corps Members will be on staff at Recreate for the summer of 2016 to engage youth and families in creative projects that develop problem-solving skills, while gaining experience serving as community leaders.

Applicants must live, or be willing to relocate to the Roseville region and be at least 18 years old. Note that the Maker Corps program will not cover moving and/or housing expenses.
 

Maker Corps employees will work approximately 30 hours per week for 9-10 weeks.  Position wage will be up to $11 to $12 per hour.   Must have a flexible schedule, to participate in projects in the community. 

IDEAL CANDIDATES WILL POSSESS:

•          interest in creativity, DIY art and science projects, and making things
•          excellent leadership, communication, and presentation skills
•          the ability to engage effectively with children, adults, and ReCreate staff
•          passion for educating
•         awareness and sensitivity in interacting with diverse populations

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

•       participate in a online on-boarding orientations in the spring and follow-up summer sessions.  Online training / follow-up is not paid.
•     engage in an online community and small group meetings to foster creativity and camaraderie among fellow makers
•     assist ReCreate in the creation of new maker experiences
•     lead interactive making explorations for youth and families
•     contribute towards a shared Maker Portfolio including: photos, blog entries, written reflections, and project write-ups
•     participate fully in evaluation efforts to collect data about the summer program        
•     represent the Maker Education Initiative and ReCreate in a positive manner via attitude, communications and enthusiasm
•    perform other duties as assigned

Apply HERE.

Sewing and Textiles Maker Camp Recap

In the sweltering days of summer we turned away from the tech ( a little!), with five fun days of Sewing and Textiles Camp. Boys and girls learned skills hand sewing, machine sewing, and practiced multiple techniques of weaving, embroidery, and felting.

Facial Hair shenanigans during our felting workshop!

We started the week with a laser cut wood pendant and the kids made BEAUTIFUL pendants. 

Campers worked creatively on theirSTUFFED ANIMALS, eagerly adding embellishments and carefully sewing together their masterful creations. One parent commented, "The animal my daughter made is so beautiful, especially knowing she designed it all by herself!".

Designed and sewn stuffed animals.

          We couldn't resist bringing just a bit of electronics into this crafty Maker Camp, so on Thursday campers made LED EMBROIDERED BOOKMARKS. Working with conductive thread and soft circuits was an adventure for all of us, but campers managed to impress ReCreate leaders with their beautifully designed bookmarks. "I want to add LED's to everything!" we heard one eager camper comment to his friends. 

Sew Electric - bookmarks with LEDs.

The Great Cardboard Challenge - Camp Recap

For most kids - a cardboard box is not just a cardboard box.  the world is full of stories of kids ho toss aside the toy inside a box to turn the box into a rocket, mask, shield,  or habitat for a stuffed animal.   For our final week Cardboard Challenge Camp,  we taught kids some skills on cardboard construction, and set them loose. 

For their final week of Maker Camp, the ReCreate Maker Staff hosted its first-ever Cardboard Camp. In a room filled with cardboard of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and origins, campers had opportunities to let only their creativity guide them as they worked to make everything from fire-breathing dragons to detailed cityscapes. The outcome was SPECTACULAR!  Maker Heather Lee headed up a two day mask / costume session that produced these amazing pieces of art.  On their first day, they constructed OVERSIZED MASKS, learning to draw a meticulous design before moving to the prototyping and then final construction phases. Of course, the final phase was their favorite: decorating!

Who needs a costume store?  We just need cardboard, paint and our creative making abilities!

These bird masks were spectacular!

            Campers also enjoyed what Makers Luke and Ryan saw as the ultimate challenge: a CARDBOARD EGG DROP. Each camper experienced working in a set time limit with restricted materials to make a protective housing for their one egg. What ensued was both delightfully dramatic and entirely exciting! Luke and Ryan dropped each egg from atop our Egg-drop bunker, and the campers cheered regardless of whether the eggs stayed whole or made a giant splat. Afterwards, we overheard them discussing the shapes and designs that worked best.

Maker Donna challenged the kids to a Tallest Structure instant challenge.  Each group got some cardboard, tape and 15 minutes.  

She rounded out the week with a giant assortment of laser cut cardboard shapes, and the kids made robots, animals and buildings.  the kids constructed and painted their projects and made amazing things.  Cardboard Maker Camp was one of our favorite weeks of the summer. 

Building with cardboard shapes.

Cardboard construction with shapes.

Creativity Camp - Art, Performance, Collaboration and Improv

Each week in our Maker Camps we took on a different angle of "Making".  Our Creativity Camp was inspired by the program Destination imagination - where teams of kids take on a challengeand create a multifaceted solution through the course of a season.  Teams compete in regional, state and global competitions - where they present their solution and also compete in an Instant Challenge.  In our Creativity Camp we squeezed a season of DI-inspired activities into one week of wild creativity and making.  In addition to their main challenge- each morning teams would get an Instant Challenge - sometimes asking them to build something from household materials or perform an improv act.... from challenge to solution - all challenges took less than 10 minutes.  

During the week, kids learned about story-line development, basic construction, backdrop creation, sewing and costumes, performance tips, prop building and more. 

The Camp Challenge... The Destination: Out of This World!

It is the future, and you decide to go camping. In SPACE.  The first planet you land on is inhabited with aliens that speak a different language than you.  They need help – but you can’t understand what they are saying.  It is your job figure out how to communicate, and to take your alien friend on a side trip to help solve their problem.  

Your team will:

• Create and present a theatrical performance of an original Story about your alien’s unusual problem. 
• You must make one gadget that has moving parts
• Somewhere in your story you must use lights
• Use a Technical Methods to cause a Bizarre Happening to take place.
• Create at least one Side Trip integrated into the Presentation.

The kids were amazing with their curiosity and invention.  Resident Maker Heather Lee taught some backdrop and art skills to them one afternoon.  Sewing tips were presented.  Glue gun skills and prop building skills were developed.  One team created a translation wand - to understand the alien they encountered.  One team made a translation helmet and camping convenience store. 

Camping Convenience Store that was part of the story.

Cardboard is always a favorite for building - and one team made a rocket prop for their blast into space. 

Other fun pictures from Creativity Camp:

Costume and prop day.

Dress rehearsal

Horn of plenty transformed into a bird mask.

While this week was less "techy" than our Robotics or Spy Camp, Creativity Camp developed skills of teamwork, problem solving, building, performance and more.  It was a great week of creativity and making!

Circuits and Robotics Masters Make Cool Stuff at Camp

Meep! Meep! Boop! Boop!  Bristle Bots coming through!

Last week kids at the ReCreate Circuits and Robotics camp had a blast racing their bristle bots around homemade battle arenas, and making their wiggly insects dance through their handmade tracks.

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Showing off the wiggly insects.

The week started with a lesson on basic circuits as kids made LED art with copper tape.  They learned that a circuit is like a racetrack, and the electricity travels in one direction just like racecars (except when they crash!)  Then with squishy circuits the campers made some sculptures with conductive and insulative playdough.  So cute!

Tuesday brought on the ultimate challenge: building a bristle bot from a toothbrush head, vibrating motor, and coin cell battery.  The campers became circuit experts, using wire to make a loop between their components to get their bristle bot hopping across the table.  As an extra challenge, the robot makers practiced their creativity and making skills constructing their ultimate battle arena.  The bristle bots spent lots of time in the bot hospital after that!

Each day new pages were added to the journals, documenting the lessons on circuits and robotics and designing their ultimate dream robot.  By Wednesday, they had the skills to build a wiggly insect robot with a switch!  The wiggly insects were very fun, especially racing around their homemade race tracks.

On Thursday, each robot master spent some time at seven different learning stations, rotating through a circuit design challenge with Ryan, playing with Snap Circuits, writing their own code and programming a maze, playing a programming board game (Robot Turtles), experimenting with a Makey Makey to play music through fruit, learning about robots on the Lightbot App, and watching a cool video on robots.

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Programming a route to navigate a maze.

On the final day of Circuits and Robotics camp, our budding robot extraordinaires got to spend time deconstructing old electronics to find more art parts for their ultimate robot.  Some campers made thank you cards with conductive copper tape and LED’s, and others got an awesome soldering lesson from our resident soldering guru, Ryan.  Friday concluded with a giant construction session to finish the robots in time to take them home. 

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Free making time!

Over the course of a week, our campers went from circuit n00bs to robot masters, and have some great new electronics skills to take to their next making adventure!!!