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When the Going Gets Tough, the Makers Keep Making!

Well, now. life has certainly taken a strange turn for just about all of us, hasn’t it?  It’s hard to know exactly what to do, how to adapt and what to expect in coming days, weeks, even months. But what’s really an inspiration is seeing how people step up and pull together even in a climate of “Social Distancing”.

Some in our immediate Maker community have tried to respond to some of the more pressing needs and shortages by trying to figure out how to make things like masks and hand sanitizer.  We’re working on that – it wasn’t easy finding the supplies, but through our connections and sources in the industrial supply area we were able to locate isopropyl alcohol and aloe vera, the two main ingredients, and they’re on order and due to arrive shortly.  We got some bottles ordered, and have our Letterpress Studio setting type for labels.  We’re putting a plan together to work collaboratively, but separately, to make a few gallons of the mix and bottle it, then get it into the hands of those who need it most.  That should happen this weekend, with any luck.

A larger worldwide group has stepped up to try to address the needs of the medical community by forming, first, a Facebook group called Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies, and then putting together resources on Google. They just posted a pretty impressive guide for anyone who would like to help, here. They even got written up in Newsweek: The Futuristic Solutions the Internet Is Crowdsourcing to Cure Coronavirus.

Closer to home, Tia Cole and her friends started up a Facebook Group called Lynn MA Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, providing a central clearing house for information and resources for Lynn and surrounding communities.  Just so you know, Tia is a maker, a force of nature in the Lynn arts and cultural community here in Lynn, as well as on our Board of Directors.

We’ve seen a huge explosion of work building community and simple, basic expression and creativity.  From free online concerts and performances to group networking, to photo, painting and “making” projects.  While it’s hard to really understand the impact, our community’s answer to “What can I do?” is simply, “What we’ve always done!”  Create, communicate, build community and tell our stories!

We’ve enjoyed everything from Scarlett, sharing her Banana Smoothie recipe, right up there in the tradition of Julia Child:

 

…to poet Carolyn Harvey reading her powerful piece about creating, the work of artists and poets, and the people who support what we all do:

As far as our activities at The Brickyard Collaborative, in many ways it’s business as usual – we’re open 24/7, but only to members and rarely have more than a handful of folks in at any time.  We’ll cancel our usual Saturday “Open Hours” where the public can get a tour for the time being.  We’ve cancelled our classes and our Repair Café for the time being, and will keep updates coming.

We’re trying to get stuff made and distributed that can help our local community to deal with these times and their stresses, so we’re just doing what we do best…  finding and making solutions!

Please reach out if you’d like to help, and take a good look at the resources linked above.  Use common sense, stay safe and healthy and keep on keepin’ on!

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Trashbots, Sewing, Engineering Fairs and Repair Cafés!

What does all this stuff have in common?  It’s coming to a Makerspace near you, namely The Brickyard Collaborative!

First up, want to learn how to master your sewing machine?  Dive right in with our Sewing Sensei, Sarah Lancaster and walk away with your very own bag!  All the details are here: Make a Bag- Machine Sewing Basics

…and what’s a Trashbot you may wonder?  It’s an autonomous bot that seeks and collects trash, conceived and designed by some of our local High School and Middle School Robotics teams, hosted here at The Brickyard.  We’re in the “Design Meeting” stages, so if you’re interested in helping out (students and advisors as well), shoot us an email here at the Brickyard.

Our monthly Repair Café is coming up too – this is turning into a thing!  Bring your broken stuff, from electronics to furniture, ripped jeans to wonky appliances and not only will we fix them, we’ll teach you how to diagnose and make your own repairs as well.  Don’t miss it, here are the details: The Brickyard Repair Café

And coming soon, Thursday, April 9th at KIPP, we’re going to be teaching some soldering skills and more at the KIPP Engineering Fair as well as sponsoring some of the awards for the event to the next generation of Engineers and Inventors!  This is the second year of their Engineering Fair – it was a huge hit last year.

See you soon at The Brickyard Collaborative!

 

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The Trashbot: Design Meetings

We’ve had a couple of visits from school robotics teams, most notably Lynn’s St Pius V’s middle-school and high-school teams, and we had a thought – combining our fabrication skills with their robotics expertise, let’s see if we can build a “trashbot” – a semi, or completely autonomous bot that can seek and destroy (or at least collect) litter in our parks and streets.  Yesterday was our first design session – we pulled a bunch of spare parts and bits from our “Inspiration Zone” and laid out a few ideas.  Here’s what we’ve got:

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The first strategy is to mount arms with “rakes” to pick up the trash, and use small motors as winches to lift the arms – once the arms reach vertical, they dump the trash into a waiting basket or trailer.  We found a couple of motors in our pile of parts, and designed some basic motor mounts on the 3D printer.

Not a bad start!

Next up – pulleys for the motors, some basic hard-wire switching, and a redesign of the rakes to pick stuff up better.  Stay tuned!

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Grant Season!

Usually, the grants we go after kind of get spread out over a period of time, but this year, January has become Grant Season at The Brickyard!  We have some major thanks to spread out this month – here’s the rundown.

The MassDevelopment Collaborative Workspace Program is a true inspiration.  It’s a true example of vision and an understanding of the value of collaborative work models, and is a Massachusetts state-level program from the Baker administration.  This year, when I met with Lt Gov. Karyn Polito to thank her for last year’s support ($57K in funds for equipment) and accept this year’s award, she asked, “What did this grant mean to you?”  An interesting question, and a loaded one, but on the spot?  It meant we could launch.  It meant we could tool up and open our doors, no less than that.

This year we applied for the Mass Department of Environmental Protection “Reduce, Reuse, Repair Micro-Grant“, a program aimed at helping create programs to keep stuff from ending up in landfills.  Our Repair Cafe won a $5000 award, the maximum, to further tool up and expand our reach and services.  This is the first year this grant has been offered, and we’re thrilled to be one of the first grantees for this visionary program!

Fun stuff, we not only hosted the informational meeting for the Lynn Cultural Council MCC grants, but we were awarded nearly $5000 for several projects we’re ramping up!  Unlike other grant processes, this is direct work with the community, meeting with friends and neighbors to put together a plan to distribute this Mass Cultural Council funding, with the attitude “It’s your money, it’s our money, let’s put it back into the city where it belongs!”  That, and, “If you have an idea, put together a proposal!  The worst that can happen is that we pass on it!”  I think the basic sum-up of the feeling was, “Go for it!”  They had some specific language for posts about it, hold on, let me get it…  Here it is: “This program is supported in part by a grant from the Lynn Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.”  

And here’s the big surprise.  The HUD Community Development Block Grant Entitlement Program is a federal program with a long history of making a big difference to local communities – indeed, several agencies in the city count on this funding every year. It’s administered through the State and finally at the city level through the Citizen’s Advisory Board to the Office of Community Development.  Again, these are our neighbors making the decisions about what best helps Lynn.  This year, at the hearing for all the applicants, we were all told that the fate of this program was not at all secure, and, though we should all go through the process, it was by no means guaranteed that any awards would be made.

The normal schedule for these grants is that the Advisory Board makes its determinations, it’s voted on by the City Council in August or so, by September the announcements are made, and contracts go out in November.  Well, this year, these dates came and went with no word on anything – awards or denial, and to be perfectly honest, our application dropped off our radar.

The other day, we were walking by the mailbox and saw a big white envelope from the Office of Community Development.  Inside, the letter: “Congratulations on your award…”  What a wonderful surprise!

All told, we were awarded over $18,700 in grants this year, all for programs that will directly benefit the community – from providing memberships to kids, disabled folks, veterans and other partner organizations, to expanding our Repair Cafes, classes and general capabilities – even getting some funding to provide stipends for overworked teachers who want to offer classes at The Brickyard.   It’s a huge deal for us, and for the North Shore makers community, but mostly?  It’s a huge deal for the City of Lynn!

We want to offer a heartfelt THANK YOU! to everybody who’s had faith in us, who’s gone to bat to support us, and for the city and state leaders who share our vision and make it possible!