Zack Weaver, an ATLAS lecturer who played a key role in establishing the ATLAS BTU Lab, stands in front of Maker Made 2020. Weaver is a creative technologist at BLDG 61: Boulder Library Makerspace and a curator for Maker Made.

A group of six artists and technologists connected to the ATLAS community contributed to Boulder Public Library’s , which runs through March 28.

Who: Everyone is invited

What: Maker Made 2022, a gallery show celebrating the diverse and inspiring work by local makers.

When: Runs through March 28. The exhibit is open whenever the library is open.

Where: Canyon Gallery, Boulder Public Library, 9th Street and Canyon Boulevard, Boulder

Cost: Free

The fourth annual gallery show celebrates the diverse and inspiring work by local makers, representing the collective energy and ambition of a community of inventors, designers, engineers, artists, craftspeople and tinkerers.

“There’s no better way to celebrate a period of creative output than a party and a show-and-tell, and that’s what Maker Made has become,” says Zack Weaver, one of the show’s curators and a creative technologist at BLDG 61: Boulder Library Makerspace.  BLDG 61’s makerspace provides maker education to the public for free in an “inspiring and inclusive environment.”

Weaver, an ATLAS lecturer who played a key role in establishing the ATLAS BTU Lab, says inspiration for Maker Made dates back to his days as a Carnegie Mellon student of Professor Mark Gross, now director of the ATLAS Institute. Gross, along with university colleagues organized annual exhibitions, similar to the ATLAS Expo, Weaver says.

The ATLAS Connection
Creative Technology and Design graduates Luciano Mejia and Chaz Golin helped curate Maker Made 2022. Hired as "Contract Killer Creative Technologists" in late 2021, the two were major contributors to the show’s success. For exhibits by members of the ATLAS community, see below.

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[video:https://vimeo.com/513483496]

As part of Boulder’s Computer Science Education Week (CSED), ATLAS PhD student Celeste Moreno will be teaching "Animate Your World," a workshop geared towards beginners and families.

The annual event, locally sponsored by the Boulder Public Library, seeks to connect community members with the best resources to learn computer science, regardless of age, background or previous experience. This year all CSED workshops will be held virtually because of the pandemic. 

During Moreno's workshop, participants will explore Scratch, a creative coding website that allows participants to interact with their projects through their computers’ cameras. Possible projects range from a virtual drum set that participants can play with their hands, to animating a monster so it hides under a bed and only emerges after everyone leaves the room. 

Moreno said she chose Scratch for the workshop’s online coding environment because those without prior coding experience can easily create games, art, and animations. It's also free and browser-based, making it easily accessible for participants. 

“Scratch does a great job of supporting creativity and inspiring people to make a wide variety of personally meaningful projects,” she said. "It makes coding and computer science fun, creative and personal." 

The workshop is part of Moreno’s graduate research in the Department of Information Science’s Creative Communities group, funded under an NSF award (NSF-2005702) titled, “.” Creative Communities’ group of researchers, students, designers and educators explore how they can engage young people to create, play and learn together. 

This is Moreno's third year of leading a CSED workshop at Boulder Public Library.  She hopes workshop participants "will find moments of joy in their coding experience, and that they leave feeling empowered to make something exciting and meaningful with code."

"Each year CSED is an opportunity for me to share what I think is amazing about code, computing and technology with a local community of curious minds of all ages,” she said. “They learn what is exciting and new.”

"Animate Your World" runs Feb. 24 from  5-6 p.m. The workshop is free, but reservations are required.

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Celeste Moreno shows a young visitor how to make music by painting on a piece of paper during the 2018 Computer Science Education Week.

The teachers, who do not need programming or hardware experience to participate, will then strategize on how micro:bits can be incorporated into their lesson plans and taught to middle- and high-school students. 

“Micro:bits are becoming an increasingly important part of coding for kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms,” says Celeste Moreno, a graduate student at CU Boulder’s ATLAS Institute who designed and will lead the "Making and Learning with Micro:bit" workshop. “It's an affordable and flexible tool that allows students to make changes in the physical world using code. Participants will learn how it can be utilized in different disciplines from environmental science to art to literacy.”

The workshop is part of Boulder’s Computer Science Education Week (CSEW), an annual event, locally sponsored by the Boulder Public Library, which seeks to connect members of the community with the best resources to learn computer science, regardless of age, background, or previous experience. The workshop, which takes place at the Museum of Boulder (2205 Broadway, Boulder) Dec. 7 from 10 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., is almost full, and reservations are required.

Moreno said she wanted to create an event where educators could share best practices of teaching computer science and technology. The results of the workshop will be included in Moreno’s master's thesis, likely to focus on how teachers learn to code and use technology in the classroom.

The idea for the workshop took hold while taking the class “Community Based Design” taught by Ricarose Roque, assistant professor of information science, Moreno said. During the class students formed partnerships and developed proposals with community members. Moreno and her partner, Cody Candler, a Creative Technologies and Design master's student, formed a partnership with the Boulder Public Library, and the two wrote a proposal to increase educator engagement during CSEW.  Moreno subsequently applied for and received a micro-grant from CU Boulder’s Office of Outreach and Engagement to offer the CSEW educator workshop.

Thanks to the grant, participating teachers will also receive lunch and two micro:bit Go Bundles, that include a micro:bit, USB cable and battery pack. The Museum of Boulder is also offering free admission that day to workshop participants.

Last year Moreno volunteered for Boulder’s CSEW as a “robot wrangler,” tinkering with robots and electronics with children and families. While there, she also presented several activities she developed as part of another class taught by Ricarose; an activity where participants made digital art on a computer by playing musical instruments and another activity where participants made music by painting on a piece of paper. 

She found the experience fun and rewarding, she said.

“More than anything, I hope event participants will gain a sense of community and feel supported and inspired,” she says. “I hope educators walk away with new connections, new ideas for their classroom and feel that the Boulder Public Library is a place that they, and their students, can come to for support.”

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