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212 STEAM Labs, Inc. 

Thank you!

Welcome to the seventh newsletter of 212 STEAM Labs, Inc. What an incredible and crazy week this has been.

I slept like a rock last night after the nonstop action of this week preparing for our first classes and the Grand Opening events. It was a week for the books to the say the least.

September 4th - The space still had OSB boards showing all around. Mike from Bullseye Drywall came in and taped everything off that night to prepare the work for texturing. That night he textured all the walls.
September 5th - The texture was up and if you know anything about the process it is messy. Everything was removed from the space and walls looked....interesting to say the last. During this time I had many late night building tables and stools to prepare for class in my garage.
September 6th - Panic is starting to settle in, but we find some amazing help to come in and paint. 9:30 Wednesday night the first coat of paint goes up.
September 7th - Second coat and touch up work is done on all the walls. At 5:00 - 6:00 my wife and I and literally rolling up the paper from the floors, cramming it in our van and quickly setting things up for class that begins at 7:00.

We had our first class launch that night to great success. We made Tic Tac catapults and launched about 300 Tic Tacs all over the room along with launching LED lights outside in the dark. It was wonderful.

September 8th - Leave work at 4:00 to get to the space to quickly prepare for the Grand Opening at 5. We had a wonderful night

September 9th - A wonderful day of connecting with so many people interested in learning about how to create experiences for kids to explore their interests.

It was a week that flew by. So many wonderful people stepped up to help make this all happen. I am once again reminded of the power of positive people. Too many to name and many would probably not want to be named, but you know who you are and I just want to say THANK YOU!

Aaron Maurer aka Coffeechug

 


 

How to Make Personalized LEGO Nametag 
 

Help Wanted

The amount of support has been tremendous. I just wanted to say thank you one more time. Additionally, here are some new things to keep in mind.

  • We are in the middle of grant writing season. We need grants to afford the materials needed to bring the ideas from our heads into reality for the people who are signing up for classes. We are need of people who are interested in helping us write and apply for grants. We have submitted quite a few, but we need to submit more as we need some of these to come through.
  • We would love to help high school students who need volunteer hours. We can meet and plan to make sure the hours reflect the needs of the students, but we had a few conversations over the weekend on this topic. If you know of someone who needs to get in some hours, then keep us in mind. We can always use a few hands and help students do some quality work.
  • We are looking to expand our network of educators to lead some classes. If you or someone you know might be a good fit and is interested in working with kids, then please let us know. We received a ton of amazing ideas for us to explore and think about expanding our services. Until I learn to clone myself we will need some help. By no means do we want to rush our expansion of ideas as we want to do things right, but we can start the conversations to see if there might be some good fits.
  • We are seeking monetary donations to develop a scholarship program. Our programs do have a fee to offset insurance, rent, wear and tear of equipment, and material costs. Due to the cost we have had families reach out who want to participate, but don't have the financial means. We would like to create a sponsorship program where we have sponsors for families. We can work out details to either give recognition for the sponsor or not. If you know of business or people who might be interested in this please let me know.
To everyone that came to the grand opening THANK YOU! I cannot express in a newsletter how full my heart was to see so many adults and kids passionate about this learning and community hub. It reminded me all weekend how important this work is to ensure that kids have a safe space to tinker, prototype, and discover who they and who they want to become. 

This is a labor of blood, sweat, and tears. There is sacrifice by my family, especially my wife who helps support the vision as well as helps to make sure our kids are being taken care of as well. The support shown this weekend proved that all we do as a community is worth it and I am excited about where the future will take this space and what we can all do together for our kids.

Thank you for carving out time in your busy schedules to visit the space, ask questions, and for taking time to talk with us.
Our September Ancient Engineering Class has already begun. Some people were interested in signing up late. We adjusted the cost if you would still like to join for the last three weeks. After this week there will be no more late registrations so join now if you are interested.

Register here

Our October class is gaining and lot of interest. Learn how to carve a small pumpkin and program an Arduino to open the mouth, LED eyes, and more.

Sign up now because if we have numbers over 15 I will need to host another class and order more materials. 

Also, I had some adults interested in this class. If you are an adult and would like to take this class, then please let me know. If there is indeed enough legit interest I will gladly host an adult class as well.

Preschool


Preschool classes begin this week. If you are thinking about joining, the pleas sign up soon so our teachers can prepare materials and be ready for a wonderful learning experience.

https://www.212steamlabs.com/

Podcast

I uploaded a new podcast about my learning journey of 212 STEAM Labs. Listen to it here and check out the previous ones if you missed them.

050: Living On The Edge of Chaos – Don't Settle 

047: Living On The Edge of Chaos - Fear and Excitement  
046: Living on the Edge of Chaos - Wishy Washy 
045: Living on the Edge of Chaos - Risk Sucks! 
044: Living on the Edge of Chaos - No Job Is Too Small 
Copyright © 2017 212 STEAM Labs, Inc., All rights reserved.


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