I received an email from Julika of her enquiring Richard (technician) about our issue regarding the 3D printer. This was his response:
What he said made a lot of sense. I didn’t previously know that the Maker’s space is a student-run environment. I guess it does mean more flexibility in using the machines and materials. However, when something as advanced as a 3D printer is placed in the space, there will be more people who don’t already have the knowledge to use such machinery. I asked our group on what to respond to Richard but they weren’t sure either. We decide to meet in person to discuss this further.
We met monday afternoon in the Maker’s space (which I didn’t even know existed prior to this unit) to discuss our next step. Walking into the space there are brief papers on the notice board showing information regarding how to use the printer/ where to access more information about that. Which, I think, is helpful and actually makes sense. We went to the skip with the idea in mind of building a technician of some sort, but then we discovered a different issue - one that we might focus more on instead of the makers space itself. There was so many usable materials in the skip that people are throwing out, it seems a waste to have everything there rot to nothing. Of course, some people, like us come to the skip to scavenge for material from time to time but it isn’t a well-known thing. We decided to do something about this issue instead. We were also afraid of sending the wrong message to the working technicians who do help the students in the space.
We went to the skip to see what materials there actually is for something we could potentially build. Suddenly coming up with the idea of selling these materials, we propose building a shop stand from these very materials. Finding frames, primed canvases, decent drawers, we began to physically put together these large scraps. We also went behind the costume department for a mannequin. After that, we move the bigger frames and canvases into Katie’s studio for them to dry (as the rain that day made them damp). The primed canvases were white, and we spontaneously decide to splash some color onto them, each and every one of us. This process was more fun than expected. I have never painted something large scale with so many others before. It was really exhilarating and I felt like I was back in primary school. We were randomly applying acrylics, fabric paint, glitter, chalk pastels onto the empty canvas. This experience made me aware of how to work with and around others when painting on the same board. Everybody agreed that it was a fun experience. In the end the canvases turned out amazing, so bright and colorful, it felt like we revived the pieces from the damp skip. Doing this made me want to try bigger-scale paintings and different mediums such as the chalk pastel in my own practice. Afterwards, we decide to meet early on the day to assemble our shop stand, since we are scared people might actually take materials from our stand and simultaneously take it apart.
I then emailed Julika to update her on the situation and this is her reply:
Personally I think it would be really interesting to work on an object in response to the problem of how 'some students not being able to learn through reading text', but we already started another idea. We were deciding on which to focus more on and I suggested since we already started another idea perhaps we can go through with that first and then if we want to we can come back and focus on this problem for the Festival, etc. They agreed.