Maker Camp: Robots, Junk, and Art

Craft & Design
Maker Camp: Robots, Junk, and Art

Today on Maker Camp we begin a week of Art and Design. To kick things off we’ll spend the day talking about robots, not ones made with fancy and expensive parts but the junkbot variety made from everyday and found objects. We have a great line-up of guests:makercamp_300x250

Joe Szuec is the co-owner of Renga Arts in MAKE’s hometown of Sebastopol, Calif. Renga is a must-stop on Sonoma County’s Highway 116 for its reclaimed and recycled art and products. Other works are made of new materials, though constructed in such a way to hasten the process of positive decay. Their goal is to make some impact on the amount of useful material buried in our landfills every day.

Renga Arts

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Some of Tiffany Threadgould’s cereal box bots.

We’ll also have Tiffany Threadgould on board. She’s a eco-lifestyle expert who spreads recycling inspiration with easy do-it-yourself solutions and who has been called “the Martha Stewart of Garbage.” She made today’s featured project, a robot made from empty cereal boxes, and wrote the DIY recycling book ReMake It! Recycling Projects from the Stuff You Usually Scrap.

We’ll also check in with Judy Aime Castro, the maker behind today’s advanced project—the CoffeeBot. She’s a member of the Flaming Lotus Girls and worked on the Serpent Mother for Burning Man and Robodock, a Technology Festival in Amsterdam. She’s also a co-founder of Teach Me To Make, an educational organization providing hands-on art and technology workshops.

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Build this CoffeeBot.

How’s that for an all-star cast? If you’re interested in making things out of “trash” today’s Maker Camp is the place to be. It all starts at 11am PT on Google+. Be sure to check the Maker Camp community page on Google+ and post a project of your own.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
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Stett Holbrook is editor of the Bohemian, an alternative weekly in Santa Rosa, California. He is a former senior editor at Maker Media.

He is also the co-creator of Food Forward, a documentary TV series for PBS about the innovators and pioneers changing our food system.

View more articles by Stett Holbrook

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