Want to learn to pick a lock, make your own ricotta or make a camp stove out of two soda cans? If you live in Oakland, California you might have attended Workshop Weekend this past weekend and now can do some of these things. The two-day event was organized by two MIT-schooled brothers, Gil and J.D. Zamfirescu who helped organize the weekend of learning and sharing.
Participants paid $30 as an admission fee to take one class or to attend as many as they wanted during the whole weekend. On the website, the event is described as a “community-centered weekend buffet of low-cost, low-commitment mini classes to discover something that you are passionate about.”. The short, hands-on workshops ranged from crafting to engineering to gardening, and were taught by local, instructors with years of passion and experience in might craft. Some of the classes from the May workshop weekend included a 10-minute bread workshop, How to solder, a Distillation workshop, PCB layout design, and Sewing with Electronics.
The event was designed to be as hands-on as possible, and many of the participants tried soldering, making felt, reading astrology, and other skills for the first time. In total, a few hundred participants attended the Workshop Weekend.
The format of the event seems to be inspired by “unconferences” or “barcamps,” which have short presentations where anyone can present. I increasingly am interested in this short workshop/presentaiton model and I plan to see if we can do something like this where I live. If you are interested in working on creating a open workshop/unconference event in Cleveland,OH that focuses on art, Open source technology, DIY culture, collaboration, and innovation, let me know.
Image Source:
workshopweekend.net
Links:
workshopweekend.net