On Tuesday, April 2nd, UTeach Maker held our monthly cohort meeting in Painter Hall. The evening started with a Taco Tuesday dinner where UTeach Makers and Mentors has an opportunity to catch-up on recent developments and share about their experiences. The theme of the evening was cardboard and STEM. J. E. Johnson from Texas Performing Arts gave a demonstration of some student-friendly tools for cutting and shaping cardboard, such as the Dremel Moto-saw.

Inspired by Critical Making, a course at UC-Berkeley, Shelly introduced the Cardboard Concepts Team Challenge. In this challenge, each team was given 60 minutes to create a visual representation out of cardboard of two randomly selected STEM terms. Some of the terms included "heterogeneous", "embryo", "kinetic", and "metamorphosis". Working with their UTeach Mentor, teams used recycled cardboard, colored paper, pom-pom balls, pipe cleaners, and rubber bands to design and build their creations.

The room buzzed with the whirl of the Dremel Moto Saw as teams worked together to create a collaborative project.Teams created artifacts which included working catapults, a cocooned caterpillar that opened to become a rainbow colored butterfly, and an embryo of heterogeneous cells that unfolded to become our UTeach Maker mascot, TaterTot the Corgi.

The Cardboard Concepts Team Challenge was a huge success with teams having an opportunity to work with their mentors and try new cutting and design techniques with an approachable medium -- cardboard. In two week, St. Edward's University will be hosting a Printmaking and E-Textile workshop which will be led by our UTeach Maker Mentor, Alex Morrison. Please RSVP with Shelly if you can attend. We look forward to see you there!