MakeFashion Edu: Paper Dresses

by | Jan 21, 2023 | MakeFashion Edu, Neighborhood Earth

Paper as a “fabric” for affordable student wearables projects? It might work out better than you think!

While researching at a textile museum in Prato, Italy, the team at SteamHead visited an exhibit showcasing paper dresses. These dresses, made entirely out of paper, were not only beautiful but also surprisingly durable. Paper dresses have a rich history in America dating back to the 1960s. During this time, paper dresses were seen representing political and cultural messages. Andy Warhol and Harry Gordon, among others, worked with fashion designers to get out new garments quickly to convey the messages of the times.

The teachers with MakeFashion Edu are excited about the potential for paper dresses made from sustainable, eco-friendly materials. They believe that this could be an excellent option for students – for all emerging designers – who often have limited resources.

This summer educators will gather in Calgary at the Fuse33 Makerspace, and testing will commence on a variety of proposed materials, paper and synthetic/paper blends included!

Prato, Italy, it is well known for its textile and clothing industry. It has a large and well established Chinese culture, which was established to drive Prato’s textile industry. Prato is also currently important center for textile research and innovation, making it an ideal location for MakeFashion Edu to discover new uses for this old material.

For our teachers in Arizona, consider checking out the “Generation Paper” exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum!

A “Nixonette” Dress

Donations: Critical Contributions

by | Jan 10, 2023 | Donations, MakeFashion Edu, Neighborhood Earth

Written by ChatGPT, Prompt/Edit by Carrie

At SteamHead, we exist solely on the generous donations of time and resources. In 2020, we were faced with the challenge of finding ways to continue providing meaningful educational resources and support. We were fortunate to receive two critical donations that helped carry us out through the pandemic and is still impactful today.

The first donation, a safe and reliable truck from media production professional Josh Smith-White. Josh understood the importance of being able to transport equipment. This donation allowed us to deliver materials and supplies to families, including electronics donated from Shenzhen, China. The supplies made their way to educational makerspaces in the U.S. and Canada, ensuring that teachers had access to the resources they needed to continue learning for their students. In a time where public delivery services were particularly challenging and certain supplies scarce, this donation created a big impact. 

The show must go on! Powered up with tech supplies, Hollinger K-8 School and Drachman Montessori in Tucson, Arizona were able to prototype projects with the delivered materials and were able to host their annual MakeFashion Edu exhibition virtually! You can find their annual fashion tech book on their pieces and stories here.

The second donation was a cash donation from Shawn Lange of L2F Inc. and BrewGrit. This was our first-ever acceptance of cash as a donation. Shawn, as a father of three and an engineer, understands the importance of providing students with uninterrupted access to materials and experts. This donation ensured the continuation of a course for approximately 150 students when our team members could not be there in person due to travel restrictions. The donation provided a grant for a dedicated local teacher to collaborate with us, and the class was able to continue through the pandemic. This course built upon past work such as this maker education workshop for migrant children.

On behalf of the beneficiaries of their donations, we are incredibly grateful to Josh and Shawn for their support. We appreciate their belief in the power of communities coming together to support one another.

Online Events: Together While Apart

by | Jan 8, 2023 | Events, MakeFashion Edu, Neighborhood Earth, SteamHead Spaces

Written by ChatGPT, Prompt/Edit by Carrie

Over the past two and a half years, our team at SteamHead has had the opportunity to participate in, present at, and even host various online events. While it was a difficult adjustment to go from in-person events to virtual ones, we were grateful for the chance to continue sharing and collaborating with others in the education, maker, and hacker communities.

Through this experience, we have learned a lot about what works well in a virtual setting, some of our top examples are:

  • Big Blue Button conference software builds communities on the fly through new ways for attendees to interact with each other and speakers.
  • Recorded talks coupled with live interaction boosts production quality AND speaker/attendee interaction.
  • Well known but worth a reminder: word clouds, polls, and live surveys (such as Mentimeter) help to engage, and to break up long periods of speech.
  • Virtual environments like Mozilla Hubs can facilitate more interaction between participants.
  • Making recorded talks accessible after a conference can reach new audiences – different styles of people tune in after hours vs those that attend online conferences!

As the world reopens, we are excited to meet in person again, but we are also grateful for the new remote tools and skills we have acquired. We are looking forward to seeing what new opportunities and connections will come from this experience, and we would like to give a shoutout to all the organizers, presenters, and attendees who have made it possible.

Check out these awesome events and organizations here:

Deeper Learning Conference

by | Mar 23, 2021 | Events, Maker Education, Neighborhood Earth

Storytelling through Fashion Technology with MakeFashion Edu

SteamHead is presenting a Deep Dive session at the 2021 Deeper Learning, where they will hold a MakeFashion Edu workshop. Participants will discover ways in which they can reach all students through the exploration of fashion tech. They will work in teams to go through a design thinking process (based on Stanford D-School), ideate and create a meaningful fashion tech piece using various levels of technology and revise with self and peers. The Deep Dive will end by exhibiting all the pieces in a virtual gallery and a ready to share fashion lookbook.

 

Maker Convening

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Great Projects, MakeFashion Edu, Neighborhood Earth

Hello Maker Convening Educators!

We are MakeFashion Edu, coming to you from our equity project, the makerspace SteamHead. We are comprised of a network of students, educators, parents, makers, and industry allies that believe in embracing design thinking and a maker-mindset education to make more engaging and meaningful learning.

Join our Discord

Our Discord server is and open, collaborative space, with message boards and topics. Since we are spread across the world, there is usually someone awake!

Joining will require you to make a free account, click the link above to get started.

Advocacy Through Tech!

We’re on October 3rd @ 11:15am (MakerEd.org), join us for a live chat right after the session on Discord. Maker Convening ticket needed for the presentation, no ticket needed for the Discord chat.

Rushing to another session and can’t make it to the live chat? Become part of our open community of students, teachers and makers on Discord and hop in on the discussions!

Our Resources

Amazon List of Materials
Color & Emotion Worksheet
MakeFashion Edu Playlist

Find Us on Social Media

Discord

Contact Us

Support Us

SteamHead is a 501c3 nonprofit, and we use these resources to support out community and build our programs for the benefit of students everywhere. All profits go directly back into the community.

Support us by donating directly through PayPal or buying a book!

 

The Book (on Amazon)

Links to Learn More about MakeFashion Edu

Advocacy in Print!

MakeFashion Edu Website

Haley Massey

Tucson, Arizona

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