WeekNotes for 2024 Week 34: Knitting Machines, Co-Learning Sessions, and Reconnecting with the Work

Weeknotes are a habit I'm cultivating where I share what I'm working on or thinking about, primarily in my professional life, without worrying too much about the ideas being full-formed.

quotes

“There are moments when you just need to go with the flow (intensive teaching with a fixed schedule, grant application deadlines, etc). But there are also moments where you can claim some time back and use it for something very valuable: reconnecting with your work. Finding what makes you tick, what you care about in your work, what brings you most satisfaction. Figuring out where you can really make a difference with your skills, passion and personality.”

Alexandra Mihai The Time Is Now

thinking about:

Last week we got a knitting machine in the Makerspace, inspired by Quinn Dombrowki’s excellent post about using knitting machines for data visualization Knot Hard: Accessible Textile Data Visualization With a Circular Knitting Machine. While I motly don’t have time to use things in the Makerspace, I like at least try every new thing out before asking students or staff to do the same. I imagine myself like Hammond in Jurassic Park trying to get the velociraptor babies to imprint on him when they hatch.

I decided to visualize our reference stats, breaking then down by technology type, and going back to when we opened in March 2022. I did two tests just to see how the machine worked, then figured out about how many rows were in an inch and that 269 rows would make an acceptable scarf, which meant each row needed to be about 300 reference interactions. I also cut out a couple of categories like “computer prototyping” that I thought didn’t have enough interactions to work well aesthetically, though I wish now I hadn’t done that.

Category| Number of interctions| Inches| Lines| Colour| Order| Knit to row
—|—|—|—|—|—|—
| Makerspace only: Tech Category| inches| lines| colour| |
VR| 649| 2.16| 17.31| pink| 7| 214.59
Recording Room and Technology| 523| 1.74| 13.95| white| 2| 45
Textiles/Wearables| 593| 1.98| 15.81| light blue| 4| 89.81
3D Printing| 3583| 11.94| 95.55| turquoise| 5| 185.36
Cricut| 1170| 3.90| 31.20| green| 1| 31
Tour| 1071| 3.57| 28.56| red| 3| 74
Other| 2069| 6.90| 55.17| dark blue| 8| 269.76
Embroidery| 447| 1.49| 11.92| orange| 6| 197.28

Here is the result! Not perfect, but not terrible!

Doing this also reminded me that I like this work. It was really nice to sit down for a couple of hours in our bright, positive space around staff and students working on their own projects. It reminded me that I love the space and culture we’ve built, and I like this work.

Last week I mentioned that I am developing weekly co-working and learning sessions for the Makerspace, which I am tentatively calling the Sandbox Series, in the hope of inspiring a sense of play without outcomes. Since then, I’ve developed the idea enough I can call it a program, created a website to share information, and scheduled the sessions to happen twice a week this term.

That’s an ambitious schedule, but I’m hoping I can make it work by thinking about these sessions less as stressful events I’m leading that take me away from my work and more like dedicated time to focus on parts of the work that I love , which is connecting with students and colleagues, helping them attain their goals, and exploring my own projects.

working on:

• Onboarding new staff
• Developing a new training schedule for student ambassadors
• A grant to continue the Indigenization work we’ve been doing in the Makerspace, including sponsoring workshops and holding welcome events for Indigenous students.
• Learning to quilt via 2 workshops hosted in the Makerspace that have been organized and taught by a couple of our Library Technitions.