the fixer effect...
Spring brings a mindset of renewal. There is Earth Day (this year it is on 190422M,) which brings about a thinking of how to care for the Earth. It is a reflection of the past, being in the present, and much future thinking of what our impact will be in the decades to come. This April has represented a time of rebirth around Harrisburg. Particularly on April, 13th, there was the 7th Annual Great Harrisburg Cleanup.
This blog focuses on this and this national (global) ideas of forming an image of "ideal" and placemaking. This connects well with my continued community discussion about the Harrisburg Comprehensive Plan and making sure that "everyone has a place at the table."
This week after a community discussion, I found out that someone left with an impression that there was some "savior complex" in what I was saying about the systems around us. I try to be very cognizant of this, because in architecture and urban design work, this can creep up. I think an importance that was missed by an individual, was the recognition in the fervent disgust / frustration i hear from most folks about big and small issues. This is around Harrisburg and other places I travel.
I try to convey the fact that we live in human systems. All of which, if we are imperfect, then the systems, our systems, are imperfect. All the more important to keep checks and balances in systems and policies that we create. This is a very important discussion, in light of the rate of change that needs to be contextualized in Harrisburg. Sadly, there are very few organizations that can slice between the hype from cheerleading and the real of everyday life. This month's blog looks at this as it relates to making. How is community capacity building made in a grounded way that doesn't surpass the real needs of individuals in a community. The idiom "be careful what you wish for" comes to mind. We might wish for things to be different, without realizing that it came at a great cost. This was evident in the movie Avenger's Endgame, which I highly recommend to any superhero fan. There is a great Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Recap put out by Screen Junkies.
More on all of that after a recap of making at John Harris and SciTech in April.
STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ARTS, MATHEMATICS:
Smart Lab (Mrs. Cureton)
After working in 3D Printing on the Dremel 3D40, Mrs. Cureton had students continue to work on their design thinking skills by having them work with the Inventables Carvey. The Carvey is a small CNC machine that help to introduce students to milling and manufacturing. While the hardware and software make it very easy to use, the students still needed to learn a step by step process. While working with two different groups one week, I stressed the need for shop safety and how to move through the process step by step.
Unfortunately the waste board has taken some milling cuts. This was expected in how well students passed along the knowledge of correctly setting the carving depth within the software. Having a step by step process is important. Failure within this project has direct results. The "measure twice, cut once" applies to all equipment in this Smart Lab.
The 3D printer is still jammed. Mrs. Cureton is waiting to get funding to order a new print nozzle. A student helped me take the print head apart to see how badly it was jammed. The PLA broke right at the entrance to the top of the nozzle. This was probably the worst spot for it to be located. I have considered using a heat gun on the nozzle to try and heat up the metal so I could use a needle to clear the opening.
It was good to have a student follow the process of troubleshooting the equipment. I talked to other students about the types of skills it took to disassemble and reassemble this type of equipment. The skillset applies to future high skills jobs.
STEAM Making @ SciTech Campus High School
TECHNOLOGY:
Esports (Mrs. Worful, Mr. Group, Mr. Green)
At the Foundry we have been planning out next year to help link educational curriculum with local Esports. This has been done by building relationships with the High School Esports League (HSEL) and Harrisburg University's Esports team, the HU Storm.
As a lifelong gamer and computer aficionado this is big. Going back to my first computer experiences with the Apple IIe in my CV Middle School computer class with Mrs. Tracy Campbell. It was Mrs. Campbell's presentation of computer history and the use of basic that has stuck with me in working with my Arduinos, Raspberry Pi-s. Our family got our first computer, the Commodore 64, in the mid '80s. In high school we upgraded to a Commodore 128. I'll never forget the summer of 1988, that I purchased James R. Kendall's Home Designer 128, which was CAD software for the 128. If I remember correctly the software was at least $50. In today's dollars, that would be the equivalent to $110. I remember it being expensive. At the time I was obsessed with CAD software that I was using in school - RoboCAD by Robo Systems International, Inc., Newtown, PA (www.robosys.com).
Connecting all of this to the 170627 release of Andrew McAfee & Erik Brynjolfsson's, Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future, the way of working with technology is still very necessary. Back in middle school and high school, I lost count of how many people thought computers didn't matter.
I am grateful that my parents supported that interest. My interest in computers, gaming and how everything worked together. Honestly in all that I do, I try to promote Digital Literacy & Digital Citizenship. The American Library Association (AL) has a good article about the importance in a digital society. So many human beings that I cross paths with are not informed. Technology rules them instead of them ruling over their technology.
Specifically with Esports, I see this as a great way to build basic online social skills of communication and collaboration that is positive. How to loose well, interact with people who are not the same as you are important skills. Sadly, there are a few articles about the Toxicity of online games. REF: Ranker - 12 Games That Can't Escape Their Own Aggressively Toxic Communities and Ars Technica - Why is Gaming Culture So Toxic?
On top of the realtime verbal / audio / text harassment, people take things to the next level. This can be done through the creation of fake accounts, false identities, impersonate people, create false records & images, generate fake video, spam businesses, all to promote false narratives in this era of fake news.
Developing Digital Citizenship skills help students to rise above the din of social networks and digital traffic. While this is an era of bullying. I believe part of the solution is in the 4Cs in how we learn to communicate, collaborate, critically-think, and create relating to each other. This is the era we are in and yet we must rise above the hate.
Here are some good references for parents and educators dealing with Bullies:
- 180305 - NPR-ED - What Kids Think About Bullying And Kindness In The Trump Era
ENGINEERING:
Edventures Discover Drones (Mr. Group)
On Monday, April 22, Mr. Group started the first class of his 4 week/20 day PCS Discover Drones portion within his Technology & Design class. This class ran for the second semester, following the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA) Engineering by Design Curriculum. He has provided a weekly schedule where students would be working through 30 Instructional Dronology Modules. These modules are self directed and includes assessment through quizzes and tests. As the students progress they will be earning the ability to practice on a computer simulator with the controllers. The Friday of each week becomes the free day of catching up on building the kits, working through the Dronology Modules, or flying a smaller drone for real flight experience. The Drones that Mr. Group is using were provided by the Foundry. The smaller trainer is the Holy Stone HS190, which is a nano quadcopter that can be packed up into the controller. The larger more advanced trainer is the Holy Stone HS150 Bolt Bee. While both of them seem like toys, they are extremely powerful with 3 speed settings. These take a lot of practice. The Bold Bee is especially realistic because it does not have a built in altitude hold. Students have to practice finding a correct height on the altitude stick. At the very end of the class Mr. Group hopes to have an indoor test track with obstacles to test student's flight ability. All of this learning and experience is a very strong prep for the FAA Drone License. The Airman Knowledge Test, which costs $150 and is done at an FAA approved Knowledge Testing Center.
STEAM Making @ All Harrisburg School District Schools
190511S - 10A-2P: Celebration of the Arts:
Both High Schools will be participating in this year's annual Celebration of the Arts, which will be held on Saturday, May 11th. This event will showcase all of the Arts programs at all K-12 schools. This will be the 3rd year that the Foundry will have participated in the event. When I started at the Foundry in 2016, I learned that Bob Steps, the SciTech Physics Teacher was always invited to this event to showcase the SciBots Robotics Team / Club. It was realized that moving, battery powered machines, really drew a crowd. For the 2017 event in March, I brought the DeltaPrintr Go, our Holy Stone Drones, and the Skanect Kinect 3D scanner. Running all of this equipment provided students, parents and teachers first hand experience with this technology. Students were present to talk about how the equipment was used in the CLS Smart Lab or in any extra curricular activities.
We are looking forward to this years event to help showcase Mr. Group's Discover Drones classwork as well as Mrs. Cureton's Carvey class projects.
190504S - 9A-3P: MakerShift:
May the Fourth Be with You. It is that time of year again for MakerShift. This is the 3rd year that this event will be held in Midtown.
A recent BuzzFeed.news article caught my eye recently. The title, “ ‘Fixer Upper’ Is Over, But Waco’s Transformation Is Just Beginning” caught my eye and I pulled it into this month’s blog title. In the article Anne Helen Petersen provides a lengthy critique about the HGTV show Fixer Upper starring Chip and Joanna Gaines. I have to admit that during downtime on vacation, this show becomes a treat. Our family household only has basic cable. Watching this show is frustrating, but meditative. Everything seems like a “simple fix.”
My 6 years of undergraduate studies (2 @ HACC + 4 @ NYIT) and 2 years of graduate work (@ MIT), all remind me that nothing is a “simple fix.” Things are complex. This is a lesson in going through the education process to build resilience to endure challenges.
Time is necessary to sort through issues.
Time is necessary to have long conversations.
Time is necessary to build relationships.
Time is necessary to think.
Time is necessary to plan.
This is why the show is difficult to digest, time is compressed. It is marketed as a commodity to get people to the final product quickly and efficiently. This is true in any home improvement / home design show, including my personal old favorite, This Old House. This was the popular show at the time and was spoofed with the ABC sitcom, Home Improvement with Tim Allen. I commend these shows for bringing the building design process to the masses, albeit in a very compressed manner. In architectural practice, the process follows Schematic Design (Pre-Design), Design Development, Construction Documents, Bid & Negotiations, and Construction Phase.
Ultimately the do not do justice to the amount of time needed to think and produce ideas. A former Foundry Fellow would always use the term "idearrhea" to describe societies ability to just spout ideas without having the necessary willpower, or knowhow put together steps to achieve a result. It is a reality. I know in working in Harrisburg, there tends to be a lot of talk. Much is needed in the strategic planning of follow through.
This why the BuzzFeed.News article is important. Especially when a place becomes a brand of oneness. In the case of Fixer Upper, the “modern farmhouse” or “the Magnolia aesthetic.” Diversity and uniqueness is pushed aside as something more “valuable” arrives. We should be questioning the value of the replacement.
There is, after all, a Waco
that you don’t see on Fixer Upper —
a Waco that’s over 21% black,
over 32% Latino,
and where 26.8% of the city
lives beneath the poverty line.
To some, the Magnolia effect is not just transforming houses and vacant brick storefronts, but smoothing and sanding the actual diversity of town, painting everything slightly different shades of white. Everyone’s invited to the Restoration of Waco. But what if, despite the invitation,
you still don’t feel welcome?
- Petersen
Something similar is happening in Harrisburg. I know going back to when we first moved into Harrisburg back in 2005 we saw and heard the discussions. There is an undercurrent around the city to desire to fix the city. We must agree from the start that cities change over time. They are not static. What is critical is the involvement of people in the change mechanism. Within the article, Petersen digs deeper into the relationship of faith-based groups and the town as a whole. I’ve seen similar threads of this dynamic between Harrisburg City and the surrounding suburbs.
"According to
Grassroots Community Development,
the home ownership rate in
North Waco has increased
from 38% to 43%
over the last 16 years.
A city grant has helped
fund repairs for code violations —
which means that more
problems are reported and
remedied before houses
sink into dilapidation."
- Petersen
How does this relate to making? I see the connections from the first time I stumbled into Hobby Lobby on the Carlisle Pike last fall. I had never stepped foot into this big box, because I never had the need or desire. It just isn’t my thing. I find my crafts supplies sufficiently through A.C. Moore or Michaels, and even then, they could be pulled into the same critique that I am going to propose below. The difference is that Hobby Lobby seems to have a lot of “pre-made,” “modern farmhouse,” or “the Magnolia aesthetic.”
The problem with this type of fixing is in the Devaluing of the Making Process.
Devaluing Point #1:
When wandering through the aisles there are rows and rows of cheap goods. One should stop and ask why is the item so cheap. Where was it made? Did the maker have some deeper connection to the item? Was the maker paid a fair wage? Was the maker considered valued in the process of making? Was the maker’s welfare considered in a compassionate way?
I cannot speculate on all items sold at the store or other similar craft stores, but I would guess that the answer would be “no” for many of those questions. I was reminded of a Ellen Ruppel Shell’s book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. I also remember a discussion either in a video (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price) or in an article (Tips For Getting Your Product Into Walmart, From People Whose Products Are In Walmart.)
Devaluing Point #2:
Besides the low cost and connection to making, a Foundry Fellow colleague Meg DelDuco remarked that many of the items can be recreated with a few supplies, basic making skills, and time. Remember the Painting / Wine / Drinking fad a couple of years ago 2015-ish, where you were given “free license” to create. Why must we pay to have someone empower us to do something that should come naturally. It came naturally to use as children. And more importantly, the result didn’t matter. It was the process. The joy of just making something. To create enriches our souls. Why would we ever push that along, except for the pressure of PERFECTION or FEAR of FAILURE.
Devaluing Point #3:
Coupled with the nagging issue of FAILURE or SOCIAL MEDIA PRESSURE, what is packed in craft stores is a “making kit.” We choose these because “unknowns” are stripped clean. The process is more sterile. The product is more perfect. Even though one has to commit some time to make something, they don’t require much thought. The Design Process is commodified as a locomotive moves on a prescribed iron rail.
Devaluing Point #4:
Working to the final level, we are caught in what I would call a "perfection loop." We want to share our creative selves, our expressive selves, but when it is laid bare in digital bits, it and ourselves are subjected to criticism. Sometimes to the extreme. Pinterest seems to be solely created to be the curator of “Nailed It” memes. What effect does this have on making. Is making internalized, isolated, and regresses into a personal expression for one’s self.
To work back in valuing the process, we should consider all of these points. Most importantly as the article continues is to deeply reflect on place. This is urban studies 101. In the article, Petersen moves deeply into issues of gentrification and displacement. She also looks at statistics of class and race and how these changed over time.
In Harrisburg, as in Waco...
"These communities,
they’re used to
being left out.
It takes time
to get people to trust
that it might be
different this time.”
- Cuevas Peacock, Grassroots Community Development
Much time is needed to walk shoulder to shoulder dealing with equity and what was taken and disinvested by previous generations. In my neighborhood discussions, the topic of a “transactional mindset.” This is the thinking or perspective that place (property) or people are just a number that can be leveraged to achieve a higher rate of return or return on investment. This connects back to the need for real Triple Bottom Line Thinking (TBL - People, Place, Economics.) In a transacitonal mindset, the Single Bottom Line of Economics rules and sadly, becomes the ultimate lens of "success."
I have seen this in the property increases that have happened over the past several years around Harrisburg. I have seen this in how our local systems look at students or persons who are marginalized to numbers to justify a process, project, or local cause.
Both of these are themes of transactional thinking of place and people is addressed in the article.
"Ask anyone in town,
from anywhere in town:
Waco is a better place
to live than it was 10 years ago.
That’s not the question.
The question is
who will be able to live
in that town in the years to come —
and participate in it
as homeowners,
as entrepreneurs,
as authorities on and
within their own communities."
- Petersen
I end with this quote, which is at the end of the article. I continue to think about “who is not at the table in the discussion.” It is a way of thinking that all of our nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions and businesses need to step into. This is not a perfect process, but then again, neither are we.
A little time and compassion is the social capital binding agent that surrounds our co-created social infrastructure.
This is a picture of Columbus Park outside of Chinatown in NYC. I include this image at the close of this month's blog, because it represents an ideal, and in its current reality, admittedly, is not a good representation of what should be achieved or objectified. However, for what it represents an infrastructure that allows a diverse amount of uses and persons inhabiting public space. This is a designed space, but it seems very "everyday."
When I was attending the World Maker Faire in Flushing Queens, I traveled into NYC with Nicole. Walking through this park, I was quite aware that I was an outsider, yet welcomed. It is difficult to describe. It was one neighborhood park in a city of over 8.5 million people.
This photo reminded me of two of my favorite books on the topic; Everyday Urbanism (Chase, Crawford, and Kaliski) and Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Causes (Architecture for Humanity, Stohr & Sinclair.) These books are great resources to find a middle ground between concepts of "high design" and "pre-packaged."
As I think through the BuzzFeed.News article, I can't help but think about the necessity of what is lacking in Harrisburg. With an architecture/urban design background, it isn't that I wish to fix things. Yes, there are systems to fix - dignified stable living conditions for all, food connectivity for all, mobility access for all. Most of all it is the celebration of the mundane. To turn the corner and discover something that is not on center, not perfect, not pristine and definitely not "pre-made," "modern farmhouse,” or of “the Magnolia aesthetic.”
It is a city lived by all residents,
who matter and are not seen as
dollar signs and/or numbers
to fit in someone's spreadsheet.
All of us are more than that.
In the discussions of social justice, equity, and environmental justice around Harrisburg, I was recently reminded of a quote by Rabbi Tarfon (Mishnah sages, 3rd Gen), in the Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers / Ethics of the Fathers)...
"It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either."
- Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:21
"The person who chooses a
different commuting route,
posts a sign over an existing sign,
sells from a corner card,
or volunteers to organize a
community meeting is as much
a city designer
as the developer and architect
who construct a skyscraper
or the city official
who suggests an ordinance.
The city is as much a consequence of these fluid everyday actions as of the overarching visions of urban designers who conceptualize
fixed-in-time master plans."
- p. 105, Chase, Crawford, Kaliski