We are excited to see the formation of Willow Glen Makers, newly established Young Makers club in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. Lendy Dunaway is the club manager. Read more about their club.
Here’s what Lendy had to say about their first meeting:
I thought the meeting went great. We had 7 young makers and 7 adults attend and several others that want to participate but were unable to attend. I really enjoyed meeting new people and exploring the project possibilities.
We spent the first 30 minutes or so discussing the maker movement, community and faire. Those of us who have been to the Maker Faire shared our experiences and observations. We emphasized the variety of the exhibits in age of the makers, size and type and encouraged the makers to think big, blend different ideas and to not be afraid not knowing how to make it.
After fielding a few questions we moved back to the shop to take a look at the tools. We briefly talked about several of the larger machines, their functions and the materials they were designed to work with. We stopped at the SawStop table saw to discuss its purpose and function which lead to a more general topic of shop safety and supervision. The last stop was at the CNC Router.
Before we left the shop we spent some time talking about materials and looking at some samples of shop projects.
The last hour was spent talking about project ideas. The ones that received the most attention are listed below:
• Trebuchet with data logging projectile and 3d trajectory mapping
• Trampoline with interactive lighting and power generation
• Water stream music organ
• Spherical land and water robotic vehicle
• Fruit and vegetable chopping peripheral/appliance for use with Fruit Ninja video game.
• Controller set shaped like pickaxes, swords and others with smart features for interacting with the Minecraft video game.
• Robust and waterproof remote control system for making fruits and vegetables slice and dice capable for aquatic battles
• Human scale “Free Flow” video game that uses a team of people stepping from tile to tile to connect colored dots and solve puzzles.
There was interest in learning and using SketchUp for project design. I will be creating a Maker Club calendar and including several times that I could host an introduction.
Before we broke up Sean gave everybody a quick quad-copter demo:
