By day, Andrew Setters is an award-winning local reporter for WLWT in Cincinnati, OH. By night, he takes to his home shop to work on projects and to document them for his YouTube channel. Like many YouTube makers, Andrew does a lot of woodworking projects, things like pallet-wood and tchotchke shelves, wooden storage carts, and serving trays, but he’s not afraid to follow his maker muse into whimsical project domains, too. On his channel, he’s hacked a Tickle Me Elmo doll, built a secret bookcase stash box, and turned a Nerf Chewbacca Bowcaster into a costume prop. Here is a sampling of a few of Andrew’s project videos that I particularly enjoyed.
Andrew says he came from a very hands-on home. His dad was a mechanic by trade, so he grew up with the mindset of: If it’s broken, you fix it yourself. Andrew says of his dad: “I watched him fix everything from cars to appliances around the house. I grew up knowing that when something was broken, you took it apart, figured out what was wrong, and how to get the replacement part.” This mentality rubbed off on young Andrew and he was always futzing with tape, cardboard, and whatever other materials he could get his hands on. He loved shop class. As he grew older, he lost that hands-on imperative for a while, with career and family taking precedent. But as his son grew, he began to see the world through his eyes, and that meant playfully hacking the world again. From there, and inspired by the maker movement and YouTube makers, Andrew created his project channel and website.
One of Andrew’s big points of focus is: Makers make more makers. He loves being inspired by other makers, and in turn, inspiring more people to get out there and start making their own stuff. He tells Make: “I really enjoy sharing what I’m working on so that people see that they too can play, have fun, learn and grow, even as adults. I think as makers, one of the most important things we can do is share our skills and our excitement, and make more makers.”
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