Finishing out our weekend of stitch Nathaniel and I really got into sewing. This week we were trying to keep the focus on sewing skills since its not just a good skill in general, but a great skill for makers especially. On Saturday we made light up animals using LEDs and coin batteries. We used conductive thread to act as wire to connect the circuit. The thread is a pretty cool product because it can be sewn in like any other thread. Nathaniel was even able to make a "soft button" for his creature. Sewing is one of my favorite Maker activities so it was fun to give it a twist and and ad the lights, its what the Maker community calls "E-Textiles". The e-textile animals where a pretty big hit, everyone adults and kids loved making them!

Nathaniel and I kicked off week 2 of Maker Corps with Stitch themed Light up Puppets! For this project guests made felt puppets on popsicle sticks and attached light up features using LEDs and batteries...

For our second day of Maker Corps today, we made ArtBots! Robots that make art! Again creativity and imagination were high in our gadgets cafe work space while guests built their bots. There was lots of hesitation at first at what to make and how to make it. Fairly quickly the process of circuits was figured out, along with how different counter weights would effect the speed and spin of their bot...

After weeks of preparation, we finally kicked of Maker Corps here at COSI! From 2-4 Friday through Sunday Maker Corps is taking over the Gadgets Cafe at COSI until the end of August. Maker Corps is a nationwide initiative to get kids to get creative and build things from arts and crafts projects, to DIY type projects....