Youth Radio - Topic: DIY

Maker's New Math DEBUTS

noah — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:26:52 -0500

In the new media economy everyone has a different path to success and the very idea of what success is... is changing.

Hosts Noah Nelson (Youth Radio) and Brandon McFarland (alldayplay.fm) present a BRAND NEW limited series-- Maker's New Math-- about artists and media makers finding new paths to success. Featuring two interviews (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and one short episode (Wedensday) every week, Maker's New Math explores the world of the new creative class: musicians, podcasters, vloggers and more. Each interview focuses on the ways these media makers are funding their work and reaching new audiences.

Week One features:

Brandon and Noah break down what the series is all about in Episode Zero: Math Lesson.

Jesse Thorn of public radio's The Sound of Young America, on producing a radio show out of his L.A. apartment.

A short chat at this year's WonderCon with Satine Phoenix, comic book illustrator and former adult entertainment actress.

Donwill of hip-hop collective Tanya Morgan on creating unique merchandise to fund making music.

In future episodes we'll talk with geek troubador Jonathan Coulton, hip-hop blog darling Oddisee, vlogger and storyteller Molly McAleer, Fred Beneson of Kickstarter and more.

Hear how others are redefining success and finding happiness.

Listen:

(download mp3)

Subscribe:

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Back-to-School Shopping on the Cheap

skhan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:40:41 -0500

Now that we going back to school, we are trying to find the stores with the best values. I don’t think people care about brands as much anymore as long as they can find something to cover up with. I have been to a lot a stores lately, especially at the mall, and they all are advertising so-called “specials.” But how much are you really saving?

Even the LA times reported recently that teen apparel sales are down at mall stores like Abercrombie and Fitch and American Eagle. Since the economy is down, and I'm going to be starting college in the fall, I wanted to ask youth in my city where they were planning on doing their back-to-school shopping.

David, 18, says that he can usually find a decent deal at the mall stores:

(download mp3)

Robert, also 18, finds the malls are OK, but prefers thrift stores, where he can get a bag of clothes for a song:

(download mp3)

Mayra, who graduates from high school this December, prefers to repurpose items she finds. For her, it's all about doing more with less:

(download mp3)

I'm not too much into any of those, so I asked around for an alternative. My mom goes to a place downtown known in Spanish as "Los callejones," or Santee Alley. So I did a little comparison shopping of my own and perhaps got a bit brainwashed by all the sale signs in the process. Take a look at this slideshow of what I found:

Previously:

Best of Maker Faire... So Far

cfoster — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:49:22 -0500

With a life-size version of the game Mouse Trap, sculptures that shoot fire, and even people riding around in motorized cupcake cars, the Maker Faire is where you can find everything you could ever imagine making yourself... even if you don't know why you'd ever want to. For the fourth year in a row, the festival in San Mateo, Calif. has filled a local fairgrounds with crazy gadgets, some more practical than others. Here is a list of my top five favorite things I’ve seen so far.

1) The Carnival Mechanique. Put on by the steam team, the Carnival Mechanique is a sort of art and crafts vending area, only instead of vases and paintings, it’s filled with wild masks, goggles, and crazy looking guitars.

2) Thomas Sepe’s Whirlygig Emoto. I had seen pictures and videos of this machine before on the internet, but they just don’t compare to seeing it in the flesh. The Whirlygig Emoto is a vintage motorcycle that has been modified to run on steam power and is covered in exotic looking buttons and flashing lights made to look straight out of 1850’s fantasy.

3) The life-size Mouse Trap. The trap is a huge structure made of materials including bathtubs, bowling balls, and elaborate chain reactions. The people working it were all dressed up in marching band uniforms and making a big show out of their exhibit.

4) Within the expo hall where our booth is set up, there is a pair of Tesla coils about eight feet tall each that go off every hour, shooting dancing purple flagella of electricity at each other, giving off the impression that you’re a mouse in Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory.

5) I think is the coolest thing here at the maker faire is the Neverwas Haul. This Victorian house on wheels is filled with eccentric people dressed in full Victorian garb explaining their mission: to civilize the savage natives of the “new world” in the name of the Hibernian Empire. The maker faire is without a doubt the perfect blend of science and eccentricity, fantasy and electricity.

DIY Prom Dresses in Down Economy

ayesha — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:23:29 -0500

By: Alyssa Wagner

The walls are plastered with prom pictures and clippings from newspapers and fashion magazines. And at 10:15 at Lincoln High School in Stockton, California, dozens of fashion design students take their seats and go to town on sewing machines…

One girl alters a friend's jeans for a few extra bucks, and others are making hoodies. Stephanie Hernandez is one of six students designing her own prom dress. She's an outside-the-box fashionista who’s known in the class for pulling off inexpensive fashion feats, like the dress she designed for winter formal. “My parents told me they had a budget for my dress and all the dresses I wanted were really expensive,” so Hernadez decided “To make my own out of teen vogue magazines. And it was really cheap, it only cost me $10.”

Ten dollars for the packing tape she used to assemble magazine cut outs into a strapless cocktail dress. Now Stephanie Hernandez is splurging a bit for the prom by making a duct tape dress for 20 bucks! “I think it takes some brains and some creativity if you want to do stuff on your own,” Hernandez says “And I think when you spend less money and are more resourceful you're dress ends up being more unique and memorable. Than if you spend a lot of money and you tuck it behind your closet and never see it again.”

Girls have long been making their own prom dresses at Lincoln High School, but this year there are incentives other than just personal expression. Gail McAuley is the fashion design teacher at Lincoln High, and she says the economic downturn has significantly affected Stockton, “We have been number one in foreclosures, our jobless rate is rising rapidly. So, economic problems have hit us badly.”

McAuley says even using high quality fabrics, girls can still save money making their own prom dresses, “A short dress is usually about 2 yards. If it's a long dress, they may need up to 4 yards. So my guess is it's going to be more like 40 -50 dollars for a prom dress, which is still cheap.”

But according to McAuley, desperate local department stores are offering rock bottom sales – so low that thrifty students can sometimes find store bought prom dresses for as little as 30 or 40 dollars. But most students don't find dresses for anywhere near that price, because there's another concern that typically trumps cost…finding the "perfect" dress.

Across the country at Grady High School in Atlanta, Georgia, students are pushing to preserve the extravagance of prom, and voted against holding prom at the school to save money. Danè White says even with a deep recession, most girls would rather skimp on dinner and the limo than the prom dress, “I think dresses are a big deal for prom. It's about interacting and checking out what people have on. I feel like dresses are really important this year and people aren't going to slack off just because of the economy issue.

White works at Old Navy to earn extra money so she can pay for her prom dress. She studies fashion design at Grady High School's Urban Couture program. Student designers there have the super glam abilities to make their own prom dresses - they design entire lines of clothing their senior year. Vincent Martinez runs the fashion program where students have resisted making their own prom dresses, “What I find amazing is that the students that I teach, and I have predominantly female students, they are looking online for dresses. They’re ranging from 2-300 dollars up to even 600. That is no different than last year, the year before that, or the year before that.

Martinez calls the prom dress splurge an economic stimulus of its own. But he says it's more than that, “It is a rite of passage. Society tells our teenage girls, and this has been going on for generations, ‘You don't really make your own dress. You’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to go out and shop for one.’”

But don't tell that to Lincoln High's Stephanie Hernandez. She’s still feeling great about her winter formal dress, “I don't think I missed out. I actually though it was super cool to have something that you made and nobody else has it, and when other people complement on it, your just kinda like woo woo.”

Hernandez also expects to feel woo woo about her 20 dollar duct tape dress which she'll wear at prom on May 9th. She even hopes to make a little college cash by winning a competition from a duct tape manufacturer offering a $3,000 scholarship to the best duct tape MacGyver-ish prom outfit.

Let Me Make Cake!

skhan — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:11:25 -0600

This past weekend was Valentine’s Day, and I felt that everyone was going crazy finding the “perfect gift,” so I decided to do something old-fashioned. I made some dark chocolate heart-shaped cake and muffins for my boyfriend since he loves dark chocolate.
While I was baking, I had a weird feeling. On the one hand, I was happy that I could manage to make something tasty without burning it. On the other hand, I realized that I was doing something that the stereotypically perfect 50s housewife or a present-day mom from my Mexican heritage would do. The reason that I felt weird is that some people in my culture, especially those of the older generation, argue that women should just be housewives. But the younger crowd thinks that women should do everything BUT cook. They think that if you go to college you can be educated and nothing else. I personally don’t want to believe that as true; it seems so limiting. I want to have the best of all worlds and be well educated and also know how to cook and do whatever else I want to.
Baking the cake this weekend made me think about what’s important to me. I found the creativity involved rewarding. I think it’s in my nature to like making unique things. Even in fashion I never like to be compared to others, so I make my own shirts or alter my clothing. Similarly, I want the gifts I make for my friends and family to be special, personal, and creative—in other words, an expression of who I am.
One of my guy friends agrees and says that he is attracted to a woman who knows what she wants out of life, regardless of the form that goal takes. He said that he doesn’t want his girlfriend to stay home and do nothing, but if she decides to stay at home, she should at least be self-sufficient enough to cook. While I might not agree with the scope of choices he has for women, I do think that he’s got it right when he says that having a creative vision makes a person attractive.
I am aiming to do what I want not for solely to win the attention of a guy, but primarily for myself. In a way, it’s both being feminist and at the same time not.