April 2017 Updates
Hello, everyone!
We’re excited to say that we’re planning for another trip to Coahoma County later this month, from April 20 - 24 during the Juke Joint Festival. We’re in full swing planning for that trip and getting in touch with people to schedule meetings and events. Also, we were excited to bring one of our primary partners, Tim Lampkin, here to Boston for a few days to work with us and the rest of the class in Massachusetts. We found a lot of value in having him here with us. But without further ado, here’s the updates on what we’ve been working on this month.
Branding
After analyzing the results from the branding feedback activities we did with youth in February, we’ve narrowed down to two contenders for the name and logo for the mobile space. We haven’t decided on any colors yet, but we’re hoping to do that as well as narrow down to a single name and logo during our trip. If you have any thoughts on either logos or names, reach out to us, we’re always looking for more feedback.
Funding
We are in the midst of applying to grants, e.g. grants from the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi, and pitching at various venture competitions. Since the beginning of the semester, we have applied to 3 competitions. If you know of any opportunities we should pursue, or people we should connect with, please let us know!
Guitar-Building Curriculum
Our partnership with Making Music Class is going strong, the two teams there have been working on developing the guitar-building curriculum. One team is imagining a four stage curriculum,
Exposure: Youth first build a very simple string instrument, like a diddly bow, to gain confidence in making
Experimentation: Youth learn skills like soldering, computed aided design, using a router, laser cutting, 3D printing, carpentry, via mini one day projects
Modeling: Youth work in teams to build a custom electric guitar from scratch using the skills that they learned in the experimentation phase
Entrepreneurship: Youth get training in how to pitch, and sell products (like the guitar, or other mini projects) that they have made
Here’s a picture of a diddly bow that they’ve prototyped for phase 1:
Massachusetts Partnership
We have been continuing on deepening our partnership with the Menino Center in Roslindale, MA. We are working on a curricula where the youth and director of the space are re-designing the computer lab so that it better fits their needs. Right now, we’re in the middle of prototyping different iterations of the space and getting feedback on them. This past week they came over to Olin College to see changes we’ve made to our spaces; it was great to get them into our environment and learn from them!
If you have any ideas or feedback you want to share on where we are, please let us know! Also, if you would like to be more involved in any of the items mentioned above, we would be very happy to have your input and participation.
Thanks so much for staying connected with us!
Your friends,
Aditi, Alisha, Anne, Cecelia, Irene, Jiaying, Kofi, and Amon
