Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show! - fun

I'm not dead! Just busy. Also: MAKER FAIRE!

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Thu, 15 May 2014 18:19:17 +0000

HI GUYS!!! So, How have you been doing? Good, good. Oh really? Awesome!

Well, I have been doing pretty well, but I’ve been hecka busy. Sorry even though I keep promising new episodes it just doesn’t happen. School has been torture, I started Karate, and Girl Scouts has been fun but selling cookies is a chore, and I’ve also been working on secret projects (hee hee hee) and traveling the world for STEM and showing the WaterColorBot.

It’s been crazy. Everything is crazy. You’re crazy. I’m crazy! No, just kidding... let’s get on with the blog post!

GUESS WHAT: January 2014 was the first WaterColorBot anniversary! 1 full year of awesome progress and watercolor painting awesomeness. Yay! I wanted to make a birthday cake for it to paint.. but then got busy again. Geeez! February and March were boring catching up with school and stuff, but also some planning for April!

I was invited to go to Geneva, Switzerland to talk at the UN for International Girls in ICT day! The UN peoplez!! It was so cool, and I got to talk about ICT (Information and Communications Technology) and STEM and why I think it’s really awesome for girls to get into it and work it. Also talk had fun and made and made an awesome mobile app and showed off the WaterColorBot (which everyone really liked)! I’ll have to do a full post on that one day soon. Here's a quick video they shot to give you an idea of what it was like.

So yep! That was fun. Oh! And hey, I’m making this awesome- wait! It’s secret!!! I almost told you what my super secret project is. Phew! If I did, you would know all about-OOP! I almost told you again! Well, I guess I could just say that we will be announcing something incredibly super awesome on Saturday at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014! And, soon after we will blog about it and how its about- ARG. Anyways...

This summer, I really want to take charge and own my time. Here’s my goal list for the next four months:

Make 5 episodes or more, changing to format of the episodes a bit: More humor, easier editing! :D
Try and build more stuff and explore new fun ways to make the shows.
I want to make at least 100 different projects
Aluminum casting my own sword with lost PLA casting from 3D printed thing!
Begged parents for Ukulele, earned money from WaterColorBot, got it, learning right now! YAY!
Mostly built an electric Go Kart for my science faire project, but couldn’t find the right parts in time, argh! I want to finish that puppy NOW! (Well, not now, but as soon as possible. ;) )

But before all that... Come see us at Maker Faire!

We don’t have a booth this year (I need my time to go see the faire!), but I will be doing fun demo stuff with the WaterColorBot and an Arduino at the Make live stage in the Expo hall on Saturday at 11:30 with the special announcement at the end. On Sunday at the education stage at 11:00am, we will be talking in detail about the announcement, and you can ask questions and stuff then too! Also I’ll be hanging around the Atmel Truck both days and building simple Arduino projects with kids for a bit. Hope to see ya at Maker Faire!! :D

EDIT: Oh! Almost forgot, my latest fun project with my dad and @MakerBlock is MakerBingo! Print your own bingo card for Maker Faires everywhere! Share it with your friends, give em to family! Go out and have fun!!

Tags

Geneva, Switzerland, United Nations, Girl Scouts, fun, summer, away, go kart, Maker Faire, San Mateo, special announcement, secret, Atmel, Arduino

We're at Maker Faire Kansas City 2012!

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 02:51:46 +0000

Hey everyone! Even though we didn't finish our Maker Faire Bay area posts yet, here we are at another one, Maker Faire Kansas City!

Last year we didn't have nearly enough time to explore, so we this year we stayed for a whole week! We went to the absolutely incredible MCC FabLab and made wooden trinket boxes on their laser cutter, then off to the HMS Beagle Science Store for the MakeKC meetup, pizza and looking at all their amazing stuff.

Then I got to teach some Science City Day Camp kids all about squishy circuits, and how to solder for the very first time!! They all did really great, learened a lot, and left with their own blinky Maker Faire robot pins they made all by themselves!

Then we met up with our maker buddy Joey Hudy and did a bunch of other stuff, eventually getting to go to the absolutely amazing Hammerspace!!! Sooo cool!

A LOT happened so far, with even more still to come! Techninja will help write it all down in a blog post soon. See you out there!

Tags

Maker Faire, Maker Faire KC, away, fun, Joey Hudy, education, Science City, Hammerspace, science, FabLab, KC

Conference wrap up, and here comes another one!

TechNinja — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:34:18 +0000

Sylvia and I had an awesome time at our very first local conference, Dare 2B Digital 2012! And now coming March first, our second, the Digital Media & Learning conference in downtown San Francisco. Oh, so much to do....

After a chance meeting with the awesome Mozilla staffer Lukas Blakk, Sylvia and I were invited to the Dare 2B Digitial conference to help teach girls about tech, so of course we said yes! On February 11th Sylvia and I got up at 5am with CraftNinja mom and headed out to the eBay campus in San Jose to get ready for troves of young women (7th to 10th grade), eager to learn all about technology. With her trusty Makerbot, and laptop primed and ready with the incredibly awesome HTML5 powered TinkerCad, Sylvia walked them all through the history and basic workings of DIY era 3D printers, followed by helping excited volunteers through creating their first 3D model, then printing it before their eyes. With most being able to design, print, then take home their very own piece. Though it was planned we'd be able to borrow some Mozilla laptops for the girls to each use Tinkercad in groups, this fell through and we improvised with paper and taking turns (which almost worked). With the exception of a sudden Makerbot power supply failure 10 minutes into the 2nd session (and subsequent fevered run to Frys electronics to replace it), everything went smoothly, at least for our first conference.

After 8 hours of teaching, learning and making things, we ended up with a great sense that what we're doing (no matter how imperfect), is really helping kids get connected, not to mention we made a lot of new friends (including our new awesome buddy from Microsquish, Kenny Spade!). Sylvia even took up the first half of the San Jose Mercury New's take on Dare 2 be Digital. One adventure down, a few million more to go.

Next up on the agenda, DML 2012: We'll be in town for all three days thanks to the incredible people at Mozilla for sponsoring us!! Sylvia and I will be up on stage for the featured panel on Democratizing Learning, and then later on for the "Science Fair" where we'll be showing off my "Sylvia inspired" Squishy Circuits powered rocket ship game using HTML5 and CSS3!

Also some exciting news, during DML we'll be taking a quick side Adventure over to Make Magazine headquarters in Sebastapol for a 3D photo-shoot on a zipline. The fun never stops :)

Tags

conference, Dare2BDigital, DML2012, fun, teaching, away, San Jose, Mozilla, MakerBot, Soft circuits

Sylvia's Squishy Circuits

Dadmin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:56:25 +0000

Mini

Are you curious about experimenting with electronics, but the fear of electric shock or soldering iron burns keep you away? Why not try squishy circuits! With a special recipe of food-safe, kitchen-made, pliable dough developed at the University of St. Thomas, kids of all ages can easily use their hands to mold their very own simple circuits right before their eyes! Lets go!

Ep. Number

See this post on MakeZine.com

Favorite Comments

robman2100I never understood the flow of electricity until now.. I am 26 years of age and love this show. good job.
guitarbradSylvia is energetic, fun and is teaching other kids about electronics and other projects in a thorough yet safe manner. You go girl! You are awesome!
Loki95531You rock Sylvia! Most excellent description of how a circuit works.
HachinizationMonths of grade 9 science rolled up in less than 7 minutes.. But more entertaining. LOL well done!
arcaderat100You make science way more interesting!
RocstoneauI'm 54 and this is the 1st time I understood how electricity works. My old teachers should have done this, I would have learnt more and not looked out the window all the time.
vincentleestthis is awesome!! greeting from an electrical engineering student!! Its always exciting to see your show!! :D friggin Copper atoms and their electrons.. ;p

Season

Sylvia Shows How to Make a Cardboard Periscope

Dadmin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:55:16 +0000

Mini

We're diving deep for an easy build you can do in an afternoon: your very own cardboard periscope!

With only a bit of cardboard, some mirrors, glue, a ruler and a little bit of time you can make something that bends light to your will, around corners and over fences. This one's so easy, you'd be crazy not to try it!

Ep. Number

See this post on MakeZine.com

Favorite Comments

TheEmeraldI think I like Sylvia better than Collin. There, I said it. :O
awesomejoe12you should do a Sylvia's Super Awesome Massive Maker Show and build the submarine to go with the periscope.
arronshuttAnother excellent video. I think I shall be showing this one to my niece and nephew..
guns4goodAlways interesting to watch your videos, Sylvia! This one is pretty cool! For night time observing, paint the interior (and exterior) of the scope flat black, that'll help you see better through it on those super secret night spy ops! ;-)
toonmonkeyYou are awesome! Keep up the cool experiments!

Season

Make your own no heat Lava Lamp

Dadmin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:15:14 +0000

Mini

We'll show you how to make your own groovy lava lamp, no heat required! All you need are a few things you just might have in your kitchen.

Ep. Number

See this post on MakeZine.com

Favorite Comments

nemoDaedalusThis simply is the best Make has to offer nowadays. I subbed for the Weekend Projects, I wanna watch people actually make stuff. And I don't see that anymore. It seems Make only has vids of already completed projects: "So you guys made a fully automatic pingpong table?" Ok, I want to SEE people create a fully automatic pingpong table, and then learn from it! And imo only Sylvia shows how to do stuff - and throws in a little chemistry lesson while she's at it.
YesIamJamesAwesome video. I hope that kid keeps her passion for science.
kaikaipandaHaving studied chemistry for years, I can say this girl is gonna be a frigging amazing scientist!
musicalmike235You know, this is one of the few youtube video series hosted by a kid that is actually good. I mean it. She is actually really good.
audiomodderyou guys should see if you can get this on PBS. i would totally bribe my kid to watch stuff like this.
lptangcuangcothumbs up if you saw the oil molecule change emotion!
airsofteerSo now you have to decide whether you want to learn about molecular polarity or matter states!
TheSupertecnologywhat?! a child can work for makemagazine?! why didn´t anybody told me?! i´m going to get job now!!!

Season

Two more episodes of the Mini maker show

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:27:45 +0000

Sylvia makes Crazy Putty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc3OF7HIYng

See this post on MakeZine.com

Sylvia makes sidewalk chalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTSaGrGL2TA

See this post on MakeZine.com

Hey guys! Sorry I've been so busy, but we just finished the last of three summer themed mini maker shows for Make online, and here they are! Have fun and be sure and comment.

Tags

chalk, fun, goo, Make Magazine, mini, polymer, sidewalk, science