This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to share Maker Faire Detroit with a handful of my students from last year. During our Goal Time last year, our own version of Genius Hour, there was a group of students who created the T-Spa and began a sugar scrub business. With the funds collected from their sales over the year at Glengary Elementary in Walled Lake, we were able to purchase materials for Maker Faire Detroit, and teach other people how to make their own sugar scrub. In addition, a second business was created towards the end of the year making paracord bracelets. C and J’s Paracord was also able to attend the Maker Faire. Together, the businesses merged and became SpaCord. Maker Faire Detroit waived the fee to sell things, as the kids wanted the profits to go to foster kids. There is a resource for foster families in Livingston County called Hope's Closet that helps out foster families with getting clothes, hygiene supplies, and bedding for foster children.
We were lucky enough to be able to join together last week to prep our materials for Maker Faire. We were not sure how many to prep, but we wanted to be efficient at our booth. We spent about 2 hours getting things ready! I was thankful for the help of supportive parents as we planned for the weekend!
My garage became a staging area for the weekend, complete with small 4 oz. cups of coconut oil, 60 pounds of sugar, marketing materials, and more! I wanted to have a formal banner for our booth, and I lucked out, as Staples Copy Center was having a sale on banners. I was able to get a grommeted banner for $25.00.
Here are some photos from Maker Faire Detroit!
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| My students shared the steps in making your own sugar scrub. 2 parts sugar...1 part coconut oil! |
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| There were awesome glasses that people could geek out with duck tape. |
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| Here are some members of my PLN making their own scrubs...Rachelle(@Miss Galang) and Mary (@WeverWorld)! |
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| We all had fun with our geeked out Maker Faire glasses! |
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| The challenge was to create a device that would balance a cup at least 6 inches about the table using an index card, a straw, 2 paper clips, and 1 label. :) |
I have to give a special thanks to my family. My husband had to make a special trip back to Brighton to pick up the banner that I left behind, and he hung out at the booth doing a great job of marketing our sugar scrub! He's a salesman by trade...so he worked his magic on the attendees of Maker Faire!
My own children enjoyed hanging out all over the Maker Faire. They wandered around each day finding awesome things to do, in addition to helping out at our booth. My daughter loved Theatre Bizarre, as well as taking apart laptops at the MSU/4H booth!
One of the highlights was having Dale Doughtery stop at our booth! We had tweeted back and forth at ISTE last month, and I tweeted him again while we were at our booth.
He found us and hung out for a bit! We even sent him off with his own sugar scrub sample!
Our Maker Faire Detroit experience was cut short due to Mother Nature. We knew the rain was coming in, and actually it held off longer than I was expecting. Luckily I had a wonderful family that helped me with our booth materials...even though we all got soaked in the process! Thank-you Zube family! I left Maker Faire looking like a drowned rat and chilled to the bone, but inside I was thankful for the experience and glad that I participated as a maker! I received wonderful comments from the families that participated, and I am so glad that I was able to continue my impact on their lives...even in the middle of summer!
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| My daughter and I were soaked from the rain but still smiling! |
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