[partsandcrafts] inventgenuity and "community supported education"
William Macfarlane
We haven't been in touch for a while. We don't call, we don't write
-- we're very sorry and we miss you. It's just that we came up to
Somerville to run summer camp and it seemed like the time was right to
make our dream of a mixed-age, kid-focused hackerspace/community
workshop for kids a reality, and it seemed like the place to do it was
up in the Boston area where we already had a big group of enthusiastic
supporters.
We miss Brooklyn, though, and we have big plans for it one day. In
the near future, though, I have two (2) pieces of information that are
relevant to you New Yorkers. First: the second Brooklyn
Inventgenuity Festival is happening this weekend and you should go!
We'll be there, and it'll be great fun --
http://www.beamcamp.com/inventgenuity/
The second is more elaborate and multi-piece. We're starting up a new
project that, among other things, transcends geographic divisions.
We're calling it Community Supported Education. You can learn more
below, or you can skip right to www.kck.st/partsandcrafts
And, here's the more elaborate version:
HEY -- WE'RE AWESOME!
The Boston Aweome Foundation awarded us an "Awesome Fellowship" --
http://awesomefoundation.org/blog/2011/01/13/triple-awesome-ftw/ --
apart from being one of the best phrases that you can legitimately put
on your CV, the Awesome Fellowship gives us $1,000 with which to do
something "awesome".
I say that they gave "us" the fellowship, and by that I really mean
pretty much everyone who might be reading this and a bunch of people
who aren't. By being the organizers, and the most visible people
involved in Parts and Crafts, we get a lot of credit for the great
stuff that happens at camp or in workshops, but a lot of that credit
actually belongs to the kids with big ideas and all of the people that
support them.
If you haven't heard of the Awesome Foundation, I recommend spending a
few minutes looking at what they've funded and how they work --
they're good folks with a neat idea supporting some very cool work,
and we're really flattered to be recognized by them.
COMMUNITY SUPPORTED EDUCATION
We were awarded the fellowship to help us get started on a project
that we've had kicking around in our brains for a while. We're
calling it "Community Supported Education" -- the idea is something
like Community Supported Agriculture, except, intead of getting a box
of fruits and veggies to eat every week, you get a box of projects and
instructions and materials to build with every month.
If this sounds interesting to you, check out the CSE page --
http://cse.partsandcrafts.org -- or drop us a line and we'll do our
best to answer your questions.
If you're interested in supporting the development of the CSE or
becoming a member, we are taking our first set of subscriptions
through a crowd-sourced fundraising website called kickstarter.com .
Look at our kickstarter page -- http://kck.st/partsandcrafts -- and
spread the word!
Actually, check out the kickstarter page either way -- I'm really
proud of the video we made.
"SOCIAL" "MEDIA"
Because the Awesome Foundation consists of all of these
twitter-people, I decided to take another stab at having one of those
web 2.0 presences. Follow us on twitter (
http://twitter.com/#!/partsandcrafts ), identi.ca (
http://identi.ca/partsandcrafts ), or either of our Facebook pages,
if following things on twitter, identi.ca, or facebook is the kind of
thing you do.
best of luck, and stay great! we're excited to be back in Brooklyn,
if only for a weekend!
--
-Will
www.partsandcrafts.org