Another splendid selection of cooking utensils created, as if by magic (but probably mostly with knives and gouges). Thanks to all the friendly folk who came down this evening and who hopefully won’t be strangers in the future!
We have more events coming soon!
Our first wood whittling session went off well today. Lots of spoons and a cute little mushroom were hand crafted with the help of the lovely lads from Woodies.
Some of the crafters also personalised their spoons by engraving them with a photography stylus.
We have another whittling session on Tuesday, 7th May at 6pm – (https://lamm.space/spoon-7-5-24). We are organising more sessions for July and August, which we’ll announce shortly.
a confused jumble of spider babies on acid
On Saturday and Sunday (19th-20th January) we held a Hack the Space weekend to clear down some of the clutter and change the layout of our community hack space.
It had become, in the words of one ‘a confused jumble of spider babies on acid’*.
So we gathered, at first there was Tom, Bill and I, but it quickly grew into Kay, Rob, Col and Rhiannon (and Ben the habitual vallium hound).
** The end result is that our little Space looks twice as big now. There is more room to do crafting and art, to make, mend, repair and invent. It is cleaner, more logical and better.
A huge shout out has to go to Tom and Kay who had all the ideas and discussions ahead of the day to make sure we had a semblance of a plan and to everyone who took the time to come and help.
As always thanks to all the members who gave suggestions, support or even just the heartfelt thanks.
Last Saturday (18th June) the Lancaster and Morecambe Makers were hosting a ‘Gadget Destruction’ workshop as a part of the Lancaster Mini Fun Palace.
Well it is as simple as it says on the tin, it is a chance to take apart gadgets and items and see how they tick.
The theory works like this:
We all pass through the stage of wanting to pull apart things to see how they work (some of us never leave that stage). Often though we do not get the chance. If they are functional then our parents/guardians and siblings might be a little miffed if we take a screwdriver to the items. If they are broke we may not be praised for the mess or potential danger.
Gadget Destruction with the local Makers gets around that issue. We have a bunch of adults who have happily taken things apart for years and sometimes put them back together, fixed, or as essential components in something new.
We also have a lot of experience in guessing a function by what the item is connected to, and we learned those from friends, books, the internet, TV and by pulling stuff apart. We like to share in taking things apart and we want to make sure that people learn the skill in doing that. It isn’t just by force (though occasionally force is used) mostly it is by working out the many ways that things are fixed, learning how to take it apart helps in learning how to put it back together.
We are also experienced in knowing what can be a danger before you take a screwdriver to it (so we took away batteries and other hazardous items that were easy to remove or taken out during the destruction process).
We had a great time. Thanks to a whole load of gadgets donated to take apart, laptops, monitors, desktops and other assorted paraphernalia. Some people even brought their own.
We had a spectacular group of people who came to visit us. I didn’t have time to count how many came through but at one point there were twenty children between ages three to twelve, with their parents, all taking something apart.
The Library staff and Fun Palace organisers were very helpful and very supportive and seemed to love allowing us to cause a small area of mayhem in the centre of the library (we did however clean up after ourselves).
The kids loved it. I had parents telling me that their normally fidgety children had spent three hours quietly destroying things. But it wasn’t really destruction, it was just messy education 😉
The thrill of being able to pull apart a laptop, or a TV or a toaster was exhilarating and liberating. The look of delight on faces when asked ‘what can I take apart’ and you answer ‘want to pull the rare magnets out of a laptop?’.
As for me, I brought along a five year old who loved being able to take apart a laptop and spent a good twenty minutes playing with diffusers from a television. It was ace.
So even though I was a part of this and loved being on the ground on the day, I want to say thanks to all my fellow LAMMers. This includes those who couldn’t make it on the day but helped in the preparation and take down of the event. You’re all stars.
So recently we decided to run a Wine and Cheese night, for all the members to get together and chat, drink wine, and eat cheese! Helpful, as several of us members enjoy Cheese, Wine (or in this case, Port), and each others company.
After the initial sorting out, including Claire cutting some signs for each Cheese out of Acrylic on the Laser Cutter, we started digging in – many thanks to Ian and Claire for sourcing the Cheese, and Mark and Louis for sourcing many of the Chutneys on show.
There was a large selection of cheese, as can be seen above – the most popular was unarguably the Snowdonia Original, although the Irish Original Porter dissapeared soon after. An unusual one was the Sticky Toffee Cheddar, which was… well, sticky and tasted of toffee. Interesting in a non-disgusting way by all accounts.
All in all, a wonderful event, with only one dissapointed member – Ben the dog, who was on crumb watching duty the whole evening.
If you missed this event, and would like to see us do it again (or something completely different!) Then let us know, or if you would like to organise an event, then again, let us know!
Until next time!
