MakeICT November News

Hello Makers! Here’s what’s been going on around the space in November:

We finished our EPIC MAGIC FIRETRUCK WHEELCHAIR for a boy who was very thrilled to have the best halloween costume ever! Thank you to everyone who worked on the wheelchair!

It’s time to appoint 2019 area leads. To help out in your favorite area, sign up here.

Can you make us ten holiday ornaments by Thanksgiving? Win a $50 MakeICT gift card in our Holiday Ornament Challenge.

Thank you to the amazing ceramics artists who helped stamp out hunger at Wichita’s annual empty bowls event!

Tell us what area is most important to you by reporting your volunteer hours

Featured makers of the month are Brian Norton in October and Krissie Lagana in February.

Makerspace tourism is all the rage. If you’re traveling to a distant city, check out their makerspace and tell them hello from MakeICT! Members reported in from Reno, Nevada and Anchorage, Alaska this month.

Want to share your projects? Sign in to our forum or post to our facebook page. Happy making, Wichita!

MakeICT September News

September is always a very busy month at MakeICT and this year is no exception. Thanks everyone for jumping in and getting involved! Here are the highlights:

Join us every Sunday evening to build an epic magic firetruck wheelchair for a very cool kid in need! We need to raise about $1500 for supplies – pitch in at makeict.org/donate

Finalize your donation for our 2018 Art Auction.on September 28th. Items will be on display starting the week before and bidding ends on Final Friday. Spread the word for our biggest fundraising event of the year.

We have big items to talk about at the September 16th Quarterly Meeting. First, we have an open board member spot. We are accepting nominations and a vote will be sent out if more than one candidate accepts. Second, we will hear from the new building committee about possible new homes for MakeICT. We do not have a proposal ready for you to vote on, but activity around our future is happening fast and we need you involved. Moving is a big deal that cannot happen without a vote of the membership behind it.

Speaking of being involved – committee signup is happening now. Whether you want to lead or just participate in a committee, please sign up! We will assign leads at the September 20th board meeting and leads will recruit their members from the signup list.

Open Streets is Sunday September 23rd and we would love to have you volunteer!

We’ve started a Chili for Charity team. Staff a booth and hang out with us on September 22nd.

There is a monthly creator challenge to see who can make something amazing with just a pair of 2x4s by the end of September.

This month’s featured maker is ceramics contributor Michelle LeFavor.

As always, tell us about your projects in the forum and have a wonderful month of making!

Coming up in August: Burgers & Brooms

Sunday August 12th, 3:00-6:00pm
Join us at MakeICT to hang out with fellow makers, clean up our space, and have a cook out…burgers and fixins’ will be provided! Please bring a side dish, chips, or dessert to share. This event will give us time to prep our space for Open Streets ICT on September 23rd and the Art Auction on September 28th.  More info…

Annual Art Auction

Just a reminder our annual art auction is September 28. It’s a highlight of the year and I hope everyone is busy working on amazing pieces to show off what we’ve done and raise money for MakeICT equipment. Talk about our auction or invite your friends on facebook in preparation for the event.

Forum highlights

Some of our top monthly posts:

• Thanks for our new oscillscope!
• Patrick Tours a Colorado Ceramics Studio
• We have laser #2! Setup in the works

June MakeICT News

Hello Makers! There is a lot going on in June, but first a reminder to please attend our Annual Meeting on Sunday June 17 2018 5pm at Hyde Park.

Details: https://talk.makeict.org/t/notice-of-annual-meeting/895
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/841635212693595/

Here is where you tell us what you’re bringing for the potluck:
https://goo.gl/forms/CsuFAnoDZsSg2AP23

We will elect our 2018-2019 board of directors through an electronic ballot immediately after the meeting. You will have 48 hours to vote. If you are a voting member of MakeICT, please be ready to check your email carefully for this important ballot. Anyone can attend the annual meeting, but only members in good standing in accordance with our bylaws will receive the email to vote. The list of candidates is on the 2018 Elections Ballot page, and you can ask questions to read candidate positions in the Leadership section of our forum.

See you there!

Class interest survey

Want to take a class? We’ve pulled a giant list of every class we’ve ever taught to see which ones are more in-demand and need consistent scheduling and they’re all in our
Mega Class Interest Survey
Sit down with a coffee and check out the list! If you see classes on there you’ve already taken, pretend you’re taking the survey for a friend who’s heard your recommendations.

Can you teach a class?

Thanks to everyone who came out or helped spread the word on our “How to Teach a Class” class last month. We went over the highlights of how to set up a class and become a MakeICT teacher. If you’re ready to jump in but missed the seminar that’s okay – the Teach a Class form guides you through a lot of what you need to know! Please submit your classes at least a month in advance.

Check out our calendar or class list to see what’s planned. This month we have lots of cool new classes like Learn to Solder a Colorful Wire Tree (June 13), Basic Computing Skills (June 16), Make a Lift Lid Box (6/18), Make a Scarf Dress (6/30) and more are being added all the time.

Mini MakerFaire News

Have you signed up to volunteer at Wichita’s Mini MakerFaire yet? We are all getting ready for this event on July 21-22. Learn about MakerFaire at wichita.makerfaire.com/ or sign up to volunteer.

Questions concerns or comments – email me (kim@makeict.org) or us (info@makeict.org).

May News & Events

Happy springtime, Wichita Makers! I hope everyone is enjoying the weather and all the great things Wichita has to offer when the weather gets warmer. We have so much going on that this newsletter has a lengthy table of contents. I know there are a lot of places to get news about our makerspace, but this is the place where I really try to condense everything for one-stop-shopping. Ready?

• Volunteer with us at Riverfest June 2-9
• Summer Intern Boot Camp start May 28
• Electric Bus Party Sunday May 4
• The Plastics Shredder Project
• The Last Toastmakers May 20
• How to teach a class class May 24
• May Gallery Show starts May 25
• Surplus Tool Auction
• Electrical outlet installation
• NOMCON 2018 in Santa Fe June 9-10
• Payment Envelopes
• Thinking Ahead to our Annual Meeting
• Parking Reminder
• Makerfaire July 21-22

Volunteer with us at Riverfest June 2-9

Can you help kids make brushbots and structures? Do you want a free riverfest button? Volunteer at MakeICT’s kids corner and STEAM city tables! There is no experience or prior knowledge needed, we’ve got everything ready to go. We need volunteers every DAY between June 2-9, mostly in the evenings after 5pm. View the full schedule and sign up on our forum.

Summer Intern Boot Camp start May 28

Do you know someone visiting Wichita just for the summer? In the past we’ve had summer interns join MakeICT and spend their first month getting in and acquainted just like regular members. Then the next month, they have to go back home. This month we’re doing something different for them – scheduling a fast track week of authorization classes so they can hit the ground running and make the most of their summer. Tell them about our Summer Intern Boot Camp program at http://makeict.org/intern

Electric Bus Party Sunday May 4

Want to work on our famous electric bus? We’ll be meeting Sunday May 6 at 4pm to discuss the history, status, and fate of one of our original group projects. If you can’t attend but have questions or thoughts, post those in our forum thread. Otherwise we will see you Sunday.

The Last Toastmakers May 20

MakeICT’s Toastmakers club has been meeting to help creative people communicate ideas and overcome public speaking fears. It’s been an awesome year, we learned a ton and met some great people, but we did not quite get to the required 20 members to charter our own official Toastmasters club. That’s okay! We’ll be celebrating our accomplishments with one last demo party on Sunday May 20 at 7pm. Of course, if we accidentally somehow get several more members before our deadline we’ll keep meeting. Join the toastmakers facebook group to learn more.

How to teach a class class May 24

Ever wanted to teach a class at MakeICT? Do you know a teacher looking for a summer side gig? Send them to our How To Teach A Class Class where we talk about the types of classes we’re looking for and how to jump in. Thursday May 24 at 7pm. [Facebook event]

May Gallery Show starts May 25

May’s gallery theme is about the things we make at classes, but your work doesn’t have to match a theme. If you complete a project, give it some time in our gallery. Sign up on our forum.

Electrical outlet installation

We need volunteers to help install outlets. Sign up at our volunteer page or contact safety@makeict.org.

NOMCON 2018 in Santa Fe June 9-10

Tune in next month as several members jump on the train to the Nation of Makers Conference! Our spots are filled but I wanted you all to know MakeICT will be represented very well at this first conference on June 9-10.

Payment Envelopes

Our treasurer David Springs is one of the hardest working volunteers at the space so please make his job easier by only depositing money in a filled out payment envelope. They are scanned in as business records so when someone doesn’t use one, he has to guess what the money is for and fill out the envelope for you. Payments might be returned to members if the envelopes aren’t properly filled out and could even delay your membership renewal.

Thinking Ahead to our Annual Meeting

June will be a busy month for us as we elect new officers. A special email will go out when we announce our annual meeting to be held the weekend of June 16-17. Officer nominations will be accepted starting around May 18. 

Parking Reminder

With the Douglas construction in front of our space complete we have a lot more clearly marked parking spaces by our space. So remember to park on the street and not our neighbor’s parking lots. Do not park in Poorman’s lot, either in front or back, or at the starter shop next door.

Makerfaire July 21-22

Makerfaire is just around the corner! Visit wichita.makerfaire.com/ to try for a last minute booth spot or sign up to volunteer.

March is Safety Month

Hello Makers. Our quarterly member meeting will be Saturday March 24th from 6-7pm at the makerspace. We wanted to dedicate this month’s quarterly meeting to a safety standdown. We have some business, but first up will be brainstorming about what we can do to make our space as safe as possible. All of your leaders have been doing homework leading up to this. We’ve consulted with experienced members of the community for guidance and have already started making changes based on that advice. For example thanks to David Springs, all of our fire extinguishers were serviced and given renewed inspection tags. We’ve been posting safety-based questions all month at talk.makeict.org for you to answer, and there’s a survey for anonymous feedback about your experiences around safety. Finally, we appointed Mike Barushok, long time member, leader, and wikibrarian, to be our safety committee lead. You can contact him at mikeb@makeict.org with questions or concerns.

Since the meeting is right around dinner time, let’s all go in on pizza? $5 per person. Profits will benefit the equipment fund, which is currently working on getting us a burnout oven for the jewelry area! https://goo.gl/forms/aqbtvgYoLbJ95GCH3

Call for Makers

Planning for Wichita’s Mini MakerFaire is well underway and we hope you’re planning to be there too! Now is the time to fill out your application. Mini MakerFaire will be the weekend of July 21-22 at Exploration Place. To reserve your table and show of your maker skills fill out the call for makers applicationor contact info@makerfairewichita.com

Focus on Education

Did you know that MakeICT teaches at least five classes a week? With everything we teach, I wanted to take some time to sit down and talk about opportunities to improve, measure and focus on our educational program.

First, there’s a survey running about your favorite classes at MakeICT, and asking you for feedback on how we can improve: https://goo.gl/forms/HQrWoajtUsJlcuKh2

Second, you’re all invited to our education program town hall meeting on Monday April 2 at 7pm. We’ll talk about success, share ideas for improvement, and make sure our classes are the best. If you have a friend who’s a teacher or educator, this would be a great thing to invite them to. Click here for the facebook event.

Third, as always if you’d like to teach a class our teach a class form does a great job leading you through the requirements. Share what you know!

Proposed bylaws change for officer terms

Currently the MakeICT board of directors is elected every June. Every seat is up for election, so every year we could have a whole new board. This is very unique for a non-profit organization. We love fresh energy and uniqueness, but as our organization grows, serving on the board comes with a big learning curve. I know as president I barely had my feet under me for the first 3-4 months. I’m now starting to feel like I know the board and my job a lot better, but guess what, three months until it’s a new election.

So we’d like to grant the next board a sense of stability and offer up a structure with at least two year terms. Rather than vote for a potentially whole new board every year, you’ll vote for half the officers every year, with the other half staying around to bring them up to speed. It’s a small change, but one that will grant us a lot of stability.

This change to our bylaws will be presented at the quarterly meeting on the 24th and voted on electronically by the eligible members. You can weigh in with your thoughts ahead of time here in the forum.

Laser Cutter Fundraising Update

Thank you MakeICT members for getting us to a place where we could order our second laser cutter! Last month I told you our budget was $2000 short of the full cost, this month our pledges and fundraising have us there. If you pledged, please go ahead and make your donation. You can either bring it to the makerspace or use the laser cutter fundraising button at makeict.org/donate. Our laser cutter will be on a boat for a while so stay tuned for news about its setup and availability. If you didn’t pledge and would still like to donate, we’d really appreciate it. The full cost of the laser is over $5000, so if we keep fundraising up to that, we can re-allocate that budgeted money for other equipment. Thank you so much!

Laser Cutter Fundraising

Members, We are preparing to purchase a second laser cutter. We are specing a more powerful 90-100W laser with a larger bed size 51” x 35” (1300mmx900mm). This will allow us to cut 48” sheets of material easier.

The projected cost estimate will be $6000 for the laser, shipping, upgrades, installation, and taxes. Our MakeICT budget for the laser purchase is $3800 plus members have pledged $800 to the laser cutter so far, so we are 40% of the way. That leaves us with $1400 dollars to go.

We are working out the details with the manufacturer and would like to purchase the laser cutter in early March. To make that happen we need your help to raise the remaining amount.

If you have ever had to wait for the laser now is your chance to pitch in and make it happen. It only takes 24@50, 12@$100, 5@250. Everyone can help us towards our goal.

If you have projects or a business that depends on the laser here is a way to protect yourself from being without it for an extended repair. If you would like to help us get to our goal of a second laser please send me an email to fablab@makeict.org.

Thomas Bloom
tom.bloom@makeict.org
Fab Lab Area Lead

Featured Maker: Malissa Long

Our February featured maker is Malissa Long: Fiber artist, fashion designer, sewn product developer, pattern maker, technical designer, and finally MakeICT board member and textiles area lead. She has taught classes in sewing, dying, printing and lots of other forms of art. Malissa moved to Wichita from Austin in July 2015. Read more on our blog…

March 10 SWE Expo

Want to spend a few hours helping kids test their paper airplanes in the MakeICT Wind Tunnel? Join us at this year’s Society of Women Engineers Expo booth. This event is held every year at Century II and has turned into a Wichita-wide festival of engineering. Boys and girls age K-8 are invited to try out hands-on engineering projects for free, and we’re proud to be a part of it. Sign up at makeict.org/volunteer or read more about Expo at wichitaswe.org/expo

Switching our Forum

We’ve talked for a while about leaving our google group for something better and now it’s time. Check your email for an invite to talk.makeict.org. This new forum uses Discourse – open source forum software that lets us have categories, embedded images, website previews, ranked topics and many more important features. If you don’t like visiting a webpage, don’t worry you can still interface through email. If you have any questions contact it@makeict.org or fill out an invite request through makeict.org/forum.

March Member Meeting

Save the date for our next quarterly member meeting on Saturday March 24, 5pm – 7pm. Agenda is being worked on and we’re happy to hear your suggestions.

Member Survey

Our ongoing member survey has been updated with questions for this year: what do you want your leadership focused on? Is there any place you wanted to help out, but weren’t sure how? Help us understand what you need by filling out our survey at bit.ly/makeict55.

MakeICT January News

Dear members: This month your leadership was very focused on approving the 2018 budget. As a new president this was an eye-opening experience and I wanted to pass on some of the things I learned.Our budget this year is based on having 300 members, because we are confident we will stay above that number all year. Each of you pays $25 a month just like me so it might help to break down what your dues are for. Nearly $20 of your dues are for the basics – rent, utilities, insurance, and of course $1 for paypal fees if you’re on the automatic month-to-month payments. The rest is split up among the various makerspace areas, first for “core expenses”, aka what it takes to keep running. Screenprinting screens, saw blades, repairs, small tools, and new tools. When it comes to funding new equipment we were very conservative, knowing that we have not only limited funds but space. There will be fundraising efforts throughout the year for equipment, you might have already seen talk of a second laser cutter in the the forum. In key areas we allocated budget to match these efforts. Fundraising has many benefits – it gives the community a chance to take part in MakeICT’s mission, ensures that our dues stay very low, and it tells us what we’re really willing to gather together and work for. If new equipment is important to you, talk to your area lead about what it will take.I said we budgeted for 300 members – we currently have more than that. Most of our costs are fixed, so additional members provide a safety margin in case our membership decreases. We also have an important task ahead of us of evaluating possible new locations for future years. Our makerspace is amazing and I will keep working to make it better, and we’ve appointed founder Jens Torell as chair of our new building committee. This way if a fantastic space opens up, we know our requirements and we’re ready to move on it.It’s very important to me for us to have a budget that we stick to and take seriously. By doing this we convey a message to our community and potential grantors that we are serious about using our funds wisely. If you have questions about the budget or our plans for this year please reach out to me or our treasurer, David Springs. Board meetings are always open to everyone and we take suggestions for our agenda with the google group.I’m very proud to be the president of an organization that’s maintaining financial stability while achieving so much success. We couldn’t do it without each and every one of you: members, area leads, and donors who contribute so generously of their time, expertise, and money. Thank you for all that you have done to so we can keep planning our bright future.- Kim

Join us for Kansas Day

January has a 5th Monday and this year it coincides perfectly with Kansas Day! Join us at 7pm on January 29 to make Kansas art, color laser cutter ornaments, and show off our makerspace for this public event. Invite all of your friends to our facebook event and we’ll see you at the makerspace.

Newsletter Suggestions

Do you have a suggestion for next month’s featured maker or project? Shoot me an email (kim@makeict.org) – especially if you’ve got photography skills or could help with a write up. Our blog is a great place to give new visitors an idea of what goes on at our makerspace!

December Member Meeting December 18

We are going to have an awesome holiday party in conjunction with our maker member meeting on Monday December 18th at 7PM! To fully appreciate this event you should definitely read the entire event description at the facebook event, but in a nutshell: #OhMGE seasonal activity! Bring a $10 gift, wear a festive sweater, sign up to bring a snack, bring a friend!

The Gift of Making

Wondering what to get the creative Wichitan in your life? How about a MakeICT gift card? Visit makeict.org/gift-memberships to read how you can give the gift of making!

Committee Sign Up

Our committee sign up sheet is a great ongoing way to get involved in the space. We’ve had leadership positions open up for the Special Projects committee, and we’re forming new committees for Decluttering and New Building Selection. The sign up sheet helps us collect interest so we can appoint the right people to these important teams so let us know what you’re interested in.
bit.ly/makeict11

2018 Area Lead Appointments

Our 2018 area leads have been chosen – thanks to everyone who volunteered! The list of names is here: Area Leads Appointments. If you’re passionate about an area, talk to the new area lead about how you can help. Many of them are appointing assistants or would just like your feedback on how to improve our makerspace. I’d like to extend a huge thanks to our 2017 area leads – you make the makerspace what it is!

Do you have a photo badge?

Shortly after the first of the year we’ll be checking to make sure everyone is wearing a photo ID when they use the space. If you’re a newer member this is no problem, photo badges are the only keys we’ve issued for months. If yo’ure a more established member you might still need to have one made. This will help us get to know each other, standardize nametags, and prevent others from using your key. Contact security if you’re still using one of the old keys: security@makeict.org

Giving Back

December is the season of giving and we have been hard at work! Our woodshop elves, consisting of MakeICT and Sunflower Guild members, made 163 toy trucks for distribution by Salvation army last Thursday the 14th. Several volunteers helped at Wichita’s Alternative Gifts market to raise $529 for Egyptian Zabbaleen recyclers. We hosted a girl scout ornament making workshop where dozens of girls learned graphic design to make their own laser cut ornaments. To get involved, stay tuned in with our forum!