Please visit the homepage for location and information on open hours


Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Notes from Brainstorm Night
04-27-2016, 09:32 PM,
#1
Lightbulb  Notes from Brainstorm Night
Notes from the Group Brainstorm on April 27, 2016

Nate:
Who are we?
Spokane Create! is a 501c3 non-profit makerspace / hackerspace / public workshop. We’ve been at our current location, in the Toolbox building, for a little over a year now, and have been incorporated for 3 years.

How are we different?
Create is unique in that we’ve always been, and hope to continue to be for as long as possible, free and open to the public.
We have a wide variety of knowledge and experience, and want to find new ways to help share our interests and expertise with each other. We want to offer classes, workshops, and challenges, but know that you don’t have to be an expert to lead or help lead any of these. If you know something about the subject and are eager and willing to share it, then you are a perfect candidate. Also, Create should be a venue to explore a wide variety of interests. We’re strong on electronics and computers, but are open to anything, except, apparently, mittens for kittens.

Dan:
What is Toolbox?
It’s a for-profit company that serves as a manufacturing incubator, turning ideas from within the company and from outside inventors/creators into business opportunities.

What does Toolbox get out of hosting Create?
Toolbox benefits from the cool factor of having a public makerspace in-house. Business leaders and investors tour Toolbox frequently, and are often excited to see Create’s space and random creative endeavors. Also, the long-term goal is to provide a fertile breeding ground for budding inventors. Maybe someone will refine an idea at Create, then bring it to Toolbox some day for help in spinning it into a business (one avenue for that would be via Toolbox’s Pitch Panel, a la Shark Tank)

Brooke: (Director of Programs, Spark Center / SparkWestCentral.org)

Partnership with Spark Center
Spark is an innovative nonprofit education center located in Kendall Yards, and is also free and open to the public. SC! has partnered with Spark in the past to offer classes at their location (3D printing and C# programming) and Brooke Matson, Spark’s Director of Programs, joined us for the Brainstorm tonight to remind us that participants in those classes were very enthusiastic in requesting similar classes and workshops to be offered in the future.

Spark currently has a variety of programs that emphasize visual and literary arts, but very little in technical arts. In addition to the class format, Brooke said that Spark has enjoyed Challenge Nights, where participants gather with a set of materials and tools and attempt to complete a challenge. Also, the potential exists to use the space to partner with creative folks and attempt public art projects. Brooke recently met with Alan Chatham (Laboratory laboratoryspokane.com) and Laura Becker (Spokane Arts Commission spokanearts.org) to talk about building a phone booth, maybe to be placed on the trail running through Kendall Yards, that could play stories about the scenery in front of the listener.

The Spark venue is pretty flexible - all the furniture in the space (including the book racks) is mobile, allowing the option to create one large space or smaller sub-spaces. There’s also a stage and a screen (Star Wars: Force Awakens @ Spark, Fri May 13th 7-9pm!)

Spark can’t accommodate activities that would generate sawdust, hazardous fumes, or fire.

Dan:
Brainstorm Night
This event is modeled on Startup Spokane. We want to think of a variety of topics, which could be offered or explored in three basic formats:
- Classes: tend to require more planning and instruction
- Workshops: can be more free-form and open ended
- Challenges: no expertise needed. a willingness to facilitate is enough. However, timed events tend to require more structure, in order to ensure that participants have a good shot at completing the activity in the time and with the materials available.

Q: Do we have a process for scheduling these events once we pick them?
A: Our goal is for interested parties to communicate and organize organically. No structure imposed.

Days/Times available:
Monday Evenings: Spark
Wednesday evenings: Create!
Saturday daytime: Create!

Nate:
Core Team
We want to look at having maybe 12 people sign up to be activity leaders, the goal being to have groups of 3 offering an activity once a month, 3 people x 4 weeks = 12. These people would specialize in the ins and outs of leading activities, and could serve as facilitators for people who want to teach or offer an activity but might not have experience leading.

Results of the brainstorm to be posted tomorrow
Reply
04-27-2016, 09:36 PM,
#2
RE: Notes from Brainstorm Night
Wow! Excellent summary! ...and very fast! Thank you!
-N8

"I built it because I didn't know I couldn't"
Reply
04-28-2016, 07:38 AM, (This post was last modified: 04-28-2016, 07:38 AM by david tremaine.)
#3
RE: Notes from Brainstorm Night
Sure! Thanks for doing the talking Tongue
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)