Meet the Makers – BEHS Tech Club

Tell us about yourself and The BEHS Tech Club.
The BEHS Tech Club is dedicated to providing students with a place to work and learn new skills. We encourage group projects and support entries into many competitions. Our focus is on self-directed learning through hands-on projects.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
We are bringing a showcase of our students most distinctive projects to Maker Fair Milwaukee this year. Cool things to look out for are custom computers and cases, electric bikes and go-cart, quadcopters, and giant rockets.

Why is making important to you?
We are focused on making and the mentality that with the right skills, you can make anything. We encourage our students to work on projects that better their lives.

What was the first thing you remember making?
Personally, a 12v power system for a tree fort, which included a keypad-based door lock, and a motorized elevator system.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
The electric gocart project was very cool, and ahead of its time, but unfortunately is too small for much-grown makers. Other than that, the DIY computer case is a great project.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
The best computer ever, an army of quadcopters, a giant laser for powering satellites! An MRI machine, and an electron microscope.

Meet the Makers – Jean’s Clay Studio

Tell us about yourself.
Milwaukee Potter for over 20 years, I began drawing and carving onto my pottery pieces and haven’t stopped yet! My designs have always been inspired by nature and have evolved to include everyday household objects and popular iconography. (Here’s a video showing some of my work.)

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
I will be presenting my current line of functional pottery, with a variety of designs. My stylized designs are carved onto each piece by a process called “sgraffito” or “slip-carving.” After the piece is thrown on the wheel and trimmed, a layer of colored clay called “slip” is brushed onto the surface. Once the slip has been allowed to dry slightly, I hand draw and carve the design through the slip. Colored highlights are painted on after the first firing in the kiln. A clear glaze is applied and fired once more to over 2000 degrees to finish the piece. Vases, bowls, mugs, plates and serving pieces will be for sale. All Dishwasher and Microwave safe.

Why is making important to you?
I fall into the category of having an obsession to “Make”! Making objects that are then shared and used by others is very personal and meaningful to me. It allows me to connect with others in a creative and joyful way. All of my pieces are created completely by hand: no molds, forms, stencils, stamps, decals or transfers are used. I feel this adds a certain amount of energy and spirit to each piece along with a distinctive and unique identity for the object and it’s owner.

What was the first thing you remember making?
I thoroughly remember some of the early projects I made in elementary school, three-dimensional objects to illustrate a book report or science homework. I spent hours on these projects and loved it! It is amazing what you can make with just paper, cardboard, glue and string.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
At the moment I am most proud of the development I have made with my pottery over the past 20 years. The functional aspect of pottery is extremely important to me and I strive to make high-quality, one-of-a-kind, enjoyable objects.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
Time and an unlimited budget? Sounds terrific! I would most likely make larger, more time-consuming pieces, that perhaps tell more of a story, or explore the natural world a little bit more.

Meet the Makers – Becky Tesch

Tell us about yourself.
I am a Milwaukee native and creative. I have been making things since very early childhood. Michaelangelo saw the sculpture within the marble, & I see potential reuse in things others have thrown away!

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
Jewelry made with reclaimed materials & found objects with a heavy emphasis on bicycle parts

Why is making important to you?
Humans are hard wired to make things with their hands, but we’re losing these skills & traditions. I think it’s essential to our basic happiness to make things & be proud of them, and use them.

What was the first thing you remember making?
Doll house furniture out of those little paper jewelry gift boxes.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
Ok, I’m going to be sappy her for a minute, I just had my first child in July. She is the best thing I’ve ever made! And she’s pretty amazing!

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
Bicycle paths, and little bicycle freeways all around the world. 🙂

Meet the Makers – Wil from Brown Dog Gadgets

Tell us about yourself.
My name is Wil Tushaus, and I just started working at Brown Dog Gadgets this summer. I’ve always been interested in making things, from Lincoln Logs and LEGOs as a kid, to a disposable camera turned taser in college. At Brown Dog Gadgets we have lots of cool projects for all ages, from non-soldering Solar Bugs, to Arduino based drawing robots.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
We are demo-ing our two drawing robots, the Mega Sketch and the Desk Sketch. The Desk Sketch is a small tabletop machine, a little more than a foot square with a draw area of about 8.5×11. The Mega Sketch works on an easel or whiteboard, and can draw in a few square feet of space. We did scale one up at the office to draw in a 6×6 foot space, we’ve dubbed it the Ultra Sketch!

Why is making important to you?
I think one of the great things about the maker movement are the communities that have come together to share ideas and help each other with problems. I do a lot of looking through sites like Instructables and Thingiverse for ideas of what to do next, or for help when I get stuck. It’s also great to be able to give back to the community when you’ve finished a project of your own. At Brown Dog Gadgets we get help and inspiration from these communities, and we make sure our projects are available open source for anyone who wants to make their own.

What was the first thing you remember making?
One of the first things I can remember making was building forts out of waffles when I was a kid. You need two or three big square waffles, toppings, a knife and fork, and a steady hand. Neatly stack up your waffles, and add toppings to taste (butter and maple syrup if you know what’s good). Using your knife and fork carefully cut along the lines separating the dimples in the waffle, first in one direction, then the next. Now you have several towers of individual waffle squares, and you can eat away the interior of the fort. Depending on the size of your waffle, you can make one big open area, or leave interior walls to create rooms. Once the fort is finished, it’s time for the enemy to attack the walls! Finish your waffle by knocking down walls and eating them.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
The Ultra Sketch I mentioned above is a pretty amazing project. In addition to fitting extra long belts and cables we had to design a special gondola to keep the pen from swinging back and forth. We also spent a half day getting everything properly calibrated, but in the end the hard work was worth it! We’ve been taking time-lapse videos and putting them on YouTube so people can watch the Ultra Sketch at work.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
I am currently working on a project I call the “Mega Desk,” which is still in the planning phases. The end goal is a combined computer desk and workstation for the things I like to make. The fun part is a control panel for switching power to the PC, monitors, and lights, gauges to monitor the CPU, GPU, and other aspects. Most importantly, are monitors which hide out of sight within the desk. An unlimited budget would pay for woodworking classes, nice hardwoods, and probably a lot more switches!

Meet the Makers – Keith Baxter

Tell us about yourself.
I have a background in electrical engineering and like to design unusual musical instruments. I’ve run a nearly successful Kickstarter campaign.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
I’ll have a number of my Kyub open source keyboards and a new variation called the Tyub that people can try out. I should have some servo electric guitars to look at but probably won’t be playing them. But they’re fun to look at as well as play.

Why is making important to you?
I think it promises to help us retain the skill set we need as a country.

What was the first thing you remember making?
Some walk-on-water shoes when I was about 10. Fortunately I didn’t get to try them out.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
I am thinking it’s the Kyub so far.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
A pedal steel servo electric guitar would be fun.

(Keith has had some good coverage for his projects in the past, including Hackaday and Popular Science!)

Meet the Makers – Dom Amato

Tell us about yourself.
I was raised in the north suburbs of Milwaukee and went to school at UW-Milwaukee for a BFA in Interdisciplinary Art & Technology with a Minor in Japanese. I also took Computer Science classes and acted as Research Assistant while in school. During that time I also begun helping the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum as a contractor for its exhibit development. Recently I moved to Chicago to pursue a Masters Degree in Human Computer Interaction and I will continue on for my PhD once I determine the school I want to attend. In my spare time, what little there is to it, I like to cook, bike, and work with my hands building contraptions. I really enjoy computer science and electrical engineering because it is like a big puzzle that has some small victories when you match parts together and then a sense of accomplishment when you finish. I believe strongly in open source cooperation and recently became one of the chief contributors to the Windows development team at openFrameworks which is the primary development framework I use in my own software.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
My booth at the Maker Faire is a little bit of an inside joke that stemmed from my work at Betty Brinn. I never had a desk or an office since I was never an employee though I took over a few closets and empty desks now and again. One of the closets became Brinn Labs as I worked there as it was far away from everyone else in the museum. The actual things I am presenting are just simple programs that I have made in collaboration with the museum and have shared with the public. Some of these are meant to be cost effective replacements for expensive hardware like piDAR, the tiny light wand, and the tiny moisture sensor. Others are meant as learning tools to make prototyping easier like gooeyPI, the Create2 OI spec 2, and Robust Firmata. Meanwhile a few are just fun projects like BAMplot or the DIY laser cutter.

Why is making important to you?
Making is important to me because it allows me to be creative in very uncreative industries. Designing exhibits may be an exception but most computer science is very dry/dull experiences that can be very unrewarding outside of a small community. No one appreciates software that runs properly or efficiently, they expect it to be so. Making on the other hand can be rough and inefficient and not even work properly but it still captures people’s imaginations and can be fascinating. A laser cutter is so much more interesting to people than the software that runs it, same with a 3D printer. I think making allows me to extend skills that are often overlooked and put them at the forefront. I also just like being physical when I create things, ever since I was little I have always made things and it was only recently that I have made digital things. I think it can be a very cathartic activity to make things but its also a great hobby that leads to greater appreciation and understanding of our digital ecosystem. When my screen breaks I can fix it myself, when I find broken electronics I can usually fix them, its an extremely useful skill to have in the 21st century.

What was the first thing you remember making?
When I was in elementary school me and my brother had bunk beds but sometime before 5th grade we got separate rooms. Instead of buying a new bed I just took the top bunk off the bottom one. The problem was the bed was really high off the ground so no normal end table would work as a night stand. I ended up building a collapsable tray that hooked into the bed frame that could be extended up and locked in place. My dad helped me make it but we had all sorts of tools in our garage and I would help him when we did house renovations. I have known how to use tools since I was very young and it allowed me to make all sorts of useless things.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
I’m pretty proud of everything I make, even when it doesn’t work. There have been some pretty great failures that I have learned a lot from, specifically there was an art installation I collaborated with multiple people on and it never worked once, at multiple venues. That was actually pretty common when I was in art school as I was so overly ambitious that so many of my artworks were never finished when it came to present them. One time in the middle of a gallery showing one of the transformers for the piece melted so I had to quickly redo all the circuitry. Maybe its weird to be proud of failures but it taught me a lot about what could go wrong and how to prevent it and I was never in doubt that I could have done it. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my successes too. The performance I did at the art museum went really well, though that artwork was sadly lost to a hard drive failure some years later. I am pretty proud of a lot of the projects I have done for the Be A Maker program at the museum. Creating the exhibits is fun but making one off random projects is a change of pace that can have really rewarding results.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
This is a tricky question because most things I make don’t cost me a lot of money anyways. I think what would be more useful to me is having unlimited time since that is honestly what I have the least of nowadays. With unlimited time I think I would make everything on my to do list first. Originally I was supposed to make a robotic knitting machine for Maker Faire but I never had the time to re-engineer the original design, and I have a lot of interest in doing that. As a backup plan I was supposed to make a painting robot but only the firmware has been made for that. I really hate not finishing a project, it weighs on me and bothers me when it sits on my white board and stares me down. I guess if I had to pick something to make with an unlimited budget it would be either a time machine, a clone, or a robot assistant so that I could get more work done in a day.

Meet the Makers – Sarah Conn

Tell us about yourself.
The name’s Sarah and I am a big lover of all things cute and felty. Most people are surprised of my enthusiasm for bats, snakes, and dragons, but dragons are basically snakes with bat wings (or bats with scales and claws), so it’s not that much of a stretch. I’m fond of hand-sewing felt plushes, though I am expanding out into fleece and clothing in the near future.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
I am presenting my game, Bats in the Belfry, which basically acts like a beanbag game, only the bean bags are bean BATS. You have to attempt to ring the bell in the wood and plasticore belfry or, alternatively, you must get all five bats in the belfry to win. In addition to my game, I will be showcasing my Les Misérables singing bat collection, featuring 20 bats based on the Les Misérables theater production and book. Some of the bats will sing 10-second chipmunk voiced versions of the musical numbers. Please stop on by!

Why is making important to you?
Making is a way of finding community and friends for me. Without my maker friends egging me on, I definitely would not have the encouragement to make all of the crazy things I’ve made. Sewing is also a very calming exercise for me that grounds me in my very busy and fast-paced life.

What was the first thing you remember making?
My grandma was a big quilter back in the day and I was determined to follow her. So determined, in fact, that I stole into my mother’s sewing cabinet and cut up all her nice, expensive upholstery fabric and an expensive bed sheet to make my jagged quilt pieces. She discovered this fact when I came crying to her when I accidentally sewed my masterpiece through my dress and somehow into my tights. I swear I’ve improved since then.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
The sheer undertaking for my Les Misérables bat project makes me amazed that I’ve stuck with and finished it, but I’d have to say one of my pride and joys is my giant hand-sewn Toothless, from DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
With an unlimited budget and time, I would probably design a bat and dragon army and maybe make some giant metal structures to go with. I’ve got some serious plans for more singing bats (Wicked with Elpha-bat and Batlina/Blinda and the Bat-dom of the Opera spring to mind) as well as other literature and pop culture icons (Elizabeth Benn-bat and Batswilliam Darcy, anyone? Or Steven Bat-iverse?). I’ve been saving up for some dragon and dinosaur patterns, so those could be in the future as well.

Meet the Makers – Frankie Flood

Tell us about yourself.
I am an Associate Professor at UWM that teaches Digital Fabrication and Design in the Department of Art and Design. I run the Digital Craft Research Lab which is a hybrid studio lab space where student can access both analog and digital tools to create objects. These objects can range from art objects that convey specific ideas to functional objects that solve design or engineering problems.

I was trained as a Metalsmith in the tradition of fine craft, but I grew up in a household that was built on DIY ingenuity and thoughtfulness. My father was a factory worker and he would often have personal projects that he would would work on after work or on a weekend day when he wasn’t working. He could fix or make just about anything and that led me to the realization that anything is possible if you have the desire to learn, and the ability to be resourceful. I am sure I became who I am from just absorbing things during my time hanging out with him in the shop. Those same skills and experiences have led me to become a teacher that helps my students solve problems. I hope that their experiences working in my classroom lead them to a fulfilled life where they get to use their skills to make a difference in the lives of others.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
I will be presenting my work with Enable, 3D printed hands, machined pizza cutters, tools, and other functional objects, as well as student work from UWM’s Digital Craft Research Lab.

Why is making important to you?
Making is important to me because I believe that the “act of making” is an innate characteristic that embodies what it means to be human. Making is the ultimate way to connect things; making connects the hand and mind, it connects unrelated fields of study to form new solutions, and it connects people. Making is way to connect to others, solve problems, be creative, and communicate ideas through the things we create.

What was the first thing you remember making?
My earliest memories of making are from taking things apart and “fixing” things but I’m sure some of the first things that I built from scratch were related to toys. I used to have a set of “building blocks” that were left over pieces of wood that my Dad had made for me; from “cut-offs” from a building project. I don’t believe there was a single block that was consistent in it’s dimensions, so this allowed for a multitude of configurations to build houses and roads for my Hot Wheels cars or Army Men to travel on or take shelter in. I remember hours of play in creating structures and roads with these wood blocks so my cars could navigate the thick shag carpet of my childhood.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
I am very proud of the design work and 3D printed hands that I have built for local and international children. I am proud of this work because it has connected many people that have been in need with people that are able to help others. It has made making something that is pure in spirit. Rather than looking for monetary gain or personal property or fame (which is sometime the goal of makers) it has opened the door to meeting other people with similar motives when is comes to making and sharing. This is something that I hold dear to my heart.

More than the things that I have made, I am extremely proud of the things that my students have made and accomplished with the skills they have learned in my classroom. There is no greater pride than seeing the success of my students as they find their own individualized way of connecting their passion with their life.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
Given an unlimited budget, I would probably build a workspace that contains all of the latest tools and equipment needed to build almost anything, and I would find a way to make that space available to people that would like to come together to solve problems and work collaboratively. I would also find a way to make it a place of learning for people who are interested in investing in their knowledge and skill. It might look something like Autodesk’s Pier 9 or Digital Craft Research Lab on steroids. Then I would get to work building things and working with people that are just as passionate about making as I am.

Meet the Makers – a bill miller

Tell us about yourself.
I’m an artist that works with digital media in a lot of different capacities. We settled back in SE Wisconsin a few years ago because I now teach at UW Whitwater in Art and Design as well as Media Arts and Game Development. We have two children and live out in the country for the time being. When I’m not in a computer lab, capture studio, or at my desk in front of a machine, I’m either binge watching an old televisions series or out in the yard/woods/field.

What are you presenting at Maker Faire Milwaukee?
I’m going to show a few videos that I made over the last year. The involve some of the work I’ve been doing at Whitewater in our Motion Capture Studio. Normally we use the space to generate motion data for use in student animation and game projects. I have been collecting the bad data – the stuff the students don’t want where the system broke down or recorded something it wasn’t supposed to. I use that noisy motion data to animate things like groups of text characters or cloth simulations. The videos are examples of that and are only available online for purchase with my video ‘album’ “post gridworks” on Undervolt & Co.

I may also be bringing some cut vinyl stickers/decals with me for fun. It’s not officially part of what I’m showing since it’s a really newer thing, but they are pretty fun too so if you see me – make sure to ask for them!

Why is making important to you?
I can’t stop making things. Even if I try to put everything away and take a break, in the back of my mind I’m thinking of things to make. Sometimes those are things like animation, video, websites, but other times it’s things like a rig for my hops to grow up, something I want to cook, or even stickers I want to cut in vinyl. To me, a big part of making is that it gives me the opportunity to share my thoughts or ideas in a way that’s more fun, creative, or direct – than just talking about it.

What was the first thing you remember making?
That’s a tough one and nothing in particular comes to mind. If I dig back deep enough it would probably have to be something like plastic model car kits with my dad. They were always really hard and dad ended up doing most of the work and I could never get the decals to work right and my paint jobs weren’t very good either.

What have you made that you are most proud of?
If you count children, then that’s something I’m really proud of. But if that’s too weird or generic I’m also just proud to be able to have made or built houses. I could go on about both of those things… kids and houses… I met my partner Kate when we both worked at Habitat for Humanity as Americorps members in the Twin Cities area. It was definitely challenging and rewarding to learn construction.

Given an unlimited budget, what would you make?
I have a dream to build a private Imax style projection dome. I know exactly how I’d do it and even have a dome about the right size… but for now the kids are using it to play on and I don’t have all of the pieces to make the projections work with it. But eventually it will be installed in our home somewhere so you can privately view films or whatever with like surround vision. lol