Blinkies Overview
The Workshop room is a place for building, repairing, as well as just chatting on all things STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art Math). Build a blinkie, melt some glass, solder some glass, complete previous projects, or repair an existing project. Come on down and enjoy. As we are in the room at the end of the universe, you can also get in a bit of exercise as well.
Beyond being (nearly) always open, we do have a couple of events to highlight.
Learn-to-solder, Fused glass, Blinkie build race, and Tech talk with the 2DKit folks
All of the events for blinkies occur in River A
The hours for the room are:
Friday 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Sunday 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Learn-to-Solder [all the time]
[All hours the room is open]
Capricon and Build-a- Blinkie.org are thrilled to host a FREE learn-to- solder workshop with a new Capricon blinkie design.
Come on down to River A with our soldering irons, tools, and enthusiastic blinkie techs, we will provide as much or at little assistance as you would like to successfully assemble the Capricon blinkie. For the blinkie connoisseurs who want more, we will have the full catalog of blinkie kits on hand. Capricon has partnered with Blinkie-a- Blinkie to cover the cost of the Capricon blinkie for the first 200 participants, one free blinkie per membership, The blinkie must be assembled at the event.
Fused Glass
[see times on signup sheet in Workshop room]
Want to design your own glass pendent? We melt more than solder in the Workshop room! Teri will run a number of workshop sessions where you will get to fuse glass in her kiln using a number of molds. She has an vast array of glass frits and materials. Stop in early to signup and check out the demo items and start planning your design. A small fee of $10.00 will be charged to cover kit materials.
The number of participants is limited by the space in the kiln, so a limited number of slots exist per session. The fusing of the glass will take 12 hours so there are only three sessions.
Blinkie Build race!
Friday at 7:00pm
Come on down to the Workshop room and watch people who "think" they are soldering masters race against the Blinkie techs. The first person done gets bragging rights. Learn how quick the professionals can move. The techs have been practicing all year at Build-a- Blinkie events, refining their skills. If your a member of staff for Capricon and do not have time to build your own blinkie, we will have a few blinkies to handout at the conclusion of the race.
Build-a-Blinkie.org is a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the teaching of STEM. We current run a number of learn-to-solder events in the Great Lakes area. We have the worlds largest mobile soldering stations and participate at numerous Maker Faires, Libraries, Universities, Maker Spaces, and area conventions, including Capricon 38.
Tech talk with the 2DKit Folks
Saturday at 8:00pm
The Build-a-Blinkie.org and 2DKits.com folks will be on hand to answer your questions. Join us in the Workshop room on audience directed topics from circuit design, sourcing of parts from local as well as overseas locations, Makerspaces in the Chicago area, 3D printing, and much much more. Bring your tech toys for Show and Tell and join in the discussion.