#MakerMonday | DIY Fiesta Medal

If you’re from San Antonio you’re all too familiar with Fiesta -- from the parades to the craziness of collecting Fiesta medals. Fiesta is definitely a time to embrace your creative side. Although official Fiesta medals are pretty cool collectors items, as makers we like to take things from a DIY approach. This past week, Make San Antonio team member, Jennifer, made a few limited edition DIY Fiesta medals for attendees of our Second Saturday Makers Showcase art show. If you were one of the lucky few to grab a medal … congrats! If not, we have you covered. Below is a quick instructional on how to make your very own Fiesta medal. 

Materials
aluminum bottle caps
flat-head screwdriver
hammer
mallet
scissors
straight tin snips (or hacksaw blade, wire cutters)
hard working surface
hot glue gun (and, glue sticks)*
bar pins (I used 1 in.)
fabric ribbon
Dremmel grinding stone (or sand paper)
permanent markers
spray paint (paint, or nail polish which is what I used for this medal)

I used the straight tin snips to snip the edges of the bottle cap. After I made my cuts, I grabbed a flat-head screwdriver and applied pressure to the cut pieces of bottle cap to help flatten to speed up the flattening process. On a hard working surface, I used a hammer and with a few hits I flattened the bottle cap. I made sure the bottle cap was really flat with a few extra hits from the mallet. Now, that the bottle cap is flat its edges are pretty rough. I used a Dremmel grinding stone (or, you could opt for sandpaper) to sand off any jagged edges of the bottle cap.

With the flattened and newly smooth-edged bottle cap it’s ready to be painted, I used two coats of nail polish because I have an abundance of bright yellow nail polish (Wet n Wild, color D’oh!, currently $.99 at Walgreens). After applying two coats of nail polish, and waiting at least an hour I used my marker to scribble down some words.

I then cut some pieces of fabric ribbons and hot glued the fabric to the bottle cap, and then glued the bar pin. I found that gluing the steel bar pin to the bottle cap was more likely to detach quicker. I think gluing the fabric directly to the bottle cap, and then gluing the bar pin to the fabric makes it sturdier and less likely to detach.

And, you’re set! You’ve made your very own DIY Fiesta medal now you’re ready to hit the Fiesta parade circuit in style.

¡Viva Fiesta from your friends at Make San Antonio!


* We made about 30 medals, and about two to three of the bottle caps detached from the bar pins. If you'd like to check out alternative adhesives, I strongly advise you check out this blog from Lemon Jitters. It's a super helpful overview of various adhesives for crafting.  

Make San Antonio Membership Drive Update

A big thank you to all those who have supported us, gave us feedback, suggestions and well wishes. We appreciate all the help during this membership drive. As our membership drive comes to a close, we're well aware that we will not be reaching our 100 member sign-up goal. Therefore we will not be charging the members who did support us. Although this is a huge set-back for us we are going to take what we've learned through this process, make any necessary changes to what we had originally envisioned, discuss with our team how to proceed and continue to update you on our progress.

What's Next for Make San Antonio?

• We are going to bundle all our progress and set-backs to this point and present that to prospective investors to gauge interest. There are several avenues we can pursue beyond this investment but we would love to have a local investor mentoring and backing us in this endeavor before we move forward.
• Our January Second Saturday event was postponed due to inclement weather but we have committed to participating in an upcoming Second Saturday so we will be curating an art show at the Lullwood Group on April 11. Mark your calendar! 

Here's a recap of what we accomplished during our short push to our membership drive and the all of the lessons learned.

Lessons Learned:
The concept of a comprehensive makerspace (that doesn't actually exist yet) is a hard sell. What we had envisioned was to sign up people who were already familiar with the makerspace model and were excited about this type of space coming to San Antonio. Instead we came across many people who were not familiar with what a makerspace is and the benefits that this type of space would bring to the San Antonio community. We were eager to share our knowledge and enthusiasm of makerspaces with all those willing to hear us out. Many people suggested that if we already had a space where they could visit, see our vision and use some of the tools they would be more willing to back us.

Pricing was a question that most prospective members had which relates quite heavily to the above. Asking for a signup of $55 without seeing the value returned in that investment was what many people had difficulties with. Our pricing for our membership drive was set based on comparable makerspaces around Texas and the nation but we have since decided to work on different methods of membership as an initial option. We want our pricing to be customizable so that as members grow into the space they can add or remove certain areas of their membership and grow their skill set accordingly.

Who are the people behind Make San Antonio?

Greg Reyes is an IT Engineer who is passionate about making. He grew up surrounded by tradesmen from ASE certified master mechanics to metalworkers to old carpenters who showed him a love for building with his own hands and taking pride in his work. His formal education in Computer Science allowed him to expand on his passion for making into software and engineering concepts. His experience and hands on knowledge of a vast array of tools, software and equipment will help Make San Antonio's members become more proficient makers.

Jennifer Herrera works for a local non-profit specializing in community outreach and public relations. She is a professional Pinterest pinner, and an aspiring maker. Her interests include photography, arts & crafts and upcycling projects. Jennifer is a Communication Studies graduate student at St. Mary's University, and volunteers with organizations such as spare parts, San Anto Cultural Arts and Gemini Ink. Her dedication to community outreach will help Make San Antonio truly become a community-oriented makerspace.

Mark Barnett is a long time maker advocate and educator. He operates a nonprofit in San Antonio that helps to provide opportunities for students to work with technologies like 3D printers, circuit boards and robotics. He also works on a National level promoting the idea of makerspaces in schools, libraries and community centers. His expertise in the Maker Movement along with his passion for education will help Make San Antonio be home for those who want to learn and grow.

Dale "Termite" Bracey is a Swiss Army Knife at work and in the community. Known for being a jack-of-all, his co-workers branded him as D.A.L.E. for Does A Lot of Everything. Over a decade at Rackspace, he spends his days promoting and dabbling in OpenStack on the Private Cloud side, and various other tasks. Award winning Artist. Education in design, photography, electronics, engineering, architecture, programming, computer science. Hobbies are collecting and restoring cars, building things, restoring his 1925 home, helping others, volunteering, and being social! His love for learning and teaching, community connections, social interactions, and just being D.A.L.E. are another wrench in the toolbox to help Make San Antonio make San Antonio!

We each have unique knowledge and experience that we bring to the table but the one thing that unites us is our passion for making. We hope to instill this maker passion in anyone we meet and we are all just as eager to teach as we are to learn.

Why Join Make San Antonio's Membership Drive Now?

We're a week into our membership drive, and we're at 9 percent of our goal of reaching 100 members within our five week campaign. Since we've kicked off our drive, we've been met with a few questions including; "Why join now when I can just wait until Make San Antonio opens their doors, and join then?" The answer is not as easy as it sounds.

We're calling on our community, that means you, to help us get to a point where we can open our doors. We don't have a physical space so we need to demonstrate that San Antonio has a thriving community of makers to sustain a place such as Make San Antonio. We're kicking off this campaign as a way to show investors the desire for this type of space in San Antonio. This campaign alone will not be enough to get our space off the ground, but our final membership numbers will give Make San Antonio the backing to show that a makerspace is viable in our San Antonio community. Once this campaign is complete, we will have a better understanding of what our membership-base will look like and what size and scope Make San Antonio will be able to provide to our members and the community.

We're about building a community of makers. Our team is comprised of like-minded individuals with a vast array of interests from 3D printing to photography who want nothing more than to help provide a space for San Antonians to geek out over the same things.

Can we count on you to help us reach our goal? Join today at makesanantonio.com. Still have questions? Shoot us an e-mail at makesanantonio@gmail.com, and we'll answer any and all questions.

New Year | New Updates from Make San Antonio

Make San Antonians,

We have been busy moving forward with creating a space for makers to call their own. It's been quite a bit of work but we are starting to see the effort we're putting into creating Make San Antonio start to come together. Our vision is becoming a reality. Thanks to everyone who has signed up on our website and supported us through social media! We have been building a local buzz and hope makers in and around San Antonio benefit the most from each other and this space.

Our progress so far:

We were in the news! The Rivard Report published an article about how we came together, and where we're headed. Check out the article, Make San Antonio: Building a Community of Makers. 

Our team has met with some mentors and investors who have helped reinforce our Make San Antonio model and helped us refine the next steps for the business. We have also started narrowing down possible locations for our makerspace and the field now consists of just a handful of excellent buildings but we're always open to run suggestions through our list of criteria. Reach out to us if you know of a great space we should consider.

Here's a sneak peak of a possible build-out of our favorite of these locations: (5,600 sq/ft with 20+ parking spaces located close to downtown)

Here's what's coming up next for Make San Antonio:

Thanks again to all those to rushed to our aide and submitted artist proposals during our call-out. If you had not heard, our January 2nd Saturday Art Show at the Lullwood Group was postponed until spring 2015 due to inclement weather but we have regrouped and have some amazing makers signed up to present at our event. We'll keep you posted on further details! 

Also, just in time for Valentine's Day, look out for our Make San Antonio Membership Drive kicking off in February! We're going to be giving our first contributors membership perks and exclusive rights to dictate how the Make San Antonio space will look and what type of equipment we should focus on. We'll be working on a video shoot this Saturday, January 31, interviewing local makers for the membership drive. We provide food and snacks, you provide a few words about your love of making. If you're a maker, and would love to share your love of making, contact us at makesanantonio@gmail.com, and we’ll share more details.

Feel free to contact us at makesanantonio@gmail.com with any questions, comments or ideas.

Let's see what we can make together!

Thanks again for all your support.
Make San Antonio Team

November 2014 | Progress Report

We are making amazing strides with Make San Antonio. We've been chatting with community members, and meeting various leaders who support our plans to build a makerspace in San Antonio. We thank you for venturing along with us as we take the appropriate steps needed to get this idea from a dream to a reality.

Here's a quick rundown of where we're at:

• We have over 100 contacts on our e-mail list and we're generating buzz on social media every day. If you haven’t signed up on our e-mail list, or would like to follow us on social media, please visit makesanantonio.com. 
• We kicked off our first Make San Antonio survey on Reddit in October and have received several responses. If you’d like to participate, please find the survey here. 
• On November 5, we pitched Make San Antonio during Café Commerce’s 1 Million Cups event and received some great feedback which we are currently implementing into our business pitch and model. 
• We recently hosted our first event, Makevember, which was held on Saturday, November 22 at Lone Star Studio.

Makevember
Although this was our first event we had over 100 people attend Makevember and had plenty of surveys filled out, including several new email list signups. We've read through the surveys and the overall consensus was a desire for a larger event and more hands-on activities. We will put your suggestions into action for our next event and try our best to hit both points.

What’s Next for Make San Antonio?

• We are actively seeking venues that could possibly house Make San Antonio. Our filtered list is any space between 5,000–10,000 sq./ft., but we will pursue any and all reasonable options.
• We are scheduling meetings with successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who can mentor us and help us refine our business pitch, provide advice from their own experience and help us refine our current business path.
• We are going to be pitching our business at several local events. As we've already pitched at Cafe Commerce’s 1 Million Cups event and received some amazing feedback we hope to replicate that in future pitches.
• We are starting to toss ideas around for some events in early 2015. As we are in the initial stages, thinking of possible participants, event locations and themes, any suggestions are appreciated.
• We are planning to kick off a membership crowd funding event in early 2015. We believe this will be the cornerstone that will allow Make San Antonio to receive full funding. We’re working to offer discounted membership rates for our initial contributors so keep an eye out for additional updates so you won’t miss out on some amazing deals.

In the meantime, what can you do? Support us by following us on social media, and reading our e-newsletters. Chat with your friends about us, and ask us questions. Once again, we thank you for your support so early on in this venture. We value your support in us to create a makerspace in San Antonio. We're on it!

Go Team Go! Go Make San Antonio!

#MakerMonday | Throwies

To throwie or not to throwie!

Spoiler: The answer is always to throwie. Throwies are fun, easy to make by yourself or in a group, and don’t require much to create a great effect. The elements of a throwie are pretty simple: a battery, a diffused LED, a magnet and some tape. Putting all the pieces together is not only fun but educational. Once everything is together and working the adventure begins. The essence of a throwie is exactly as it sounds, you have to throw the light onto a metal object, thus “throwie”. It may take a few tries but they’ll eventually stick if you follow the throwie recipe. So what’s so great about a throwie on a piece of metal?  What if you have 10 different colored lights or 200, like we had in our own wedding? The effect produced is pretty amazing. The life expectancy of these lights is roughly 2 weeks, but in our experience most of our lights were still working at two months and even at a year old there were a handful of lights that still had some life in them. The LED life expectancy is quite a bit longer than the battery so if you can retrieve the throwie after they go dim you can replace the battery and have a brand new working throwie once again. If you haven’t heard of or about throwies before, check out this instructable on the topic. There are some pretty bare metal bridges around San Antonio that are just begging for some color... What would you do with them?

Here's some inspiration:

http://goo.gl/wPPg9u

http://goo.gl/4pTWGh

http://goo.gl/IkzsPI

http://goo.gl/BVToxN