The Instructors

 

Michael Shiloh Michael Shiloh teaches electronics and mechanics with an intuitive approach, by showing how to build gadgets, contraptions, robots, and kinetic sculptures. Michael teaches adults and children at museums, schools, universities, conferences, and special events. Michael has taught at numerous institutions including the California College of Art, San Francisco State University, The Art Institute, San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation, Stanford University, and Make Magazine's art and technology Make Mobile, bringing Maker Faire projects to under-served schools. He leads the largest event at Make magazine's annual Maker Faire, where an estimated 3000 children and adults build gadgets and contraptions from discarded electrical devices at his MAKE Play Day workshop. Michael's background includes a profession in engineering, a lifetime of curious tinkering, and creating experimental machine art with groups such as Survival Research Labs. His work reflects an open source approach to creating and sharing knowledge. Teaching experiences such as mentoring for individual projects, leading non-conventional classes, and public speaking have made Michael an effective and popular teacher. Michael's art includes robotic sculpture and experimental furniture incorporating concrete and broken glass. He has designed embedded hardware and software for high-speed image processing, robotic and industrial control, and co-founded a company which designs and builds electronics for inventors, artists, and hobbyists. He has been a speaker at over 30 conferences and events around the world on topics including teaching through contraption building, physical computing, and open source advocacy.

Judy Aime' Castro Judy is an artist and designer working with textiles, metal, industrial materials, and electronics. She received a Textiles Award from SFSU while earning a BA in Industrial Design. She learned tinkering from her father who was a machinist, and sewing from her mother as a family trade. She was born in the North Andes of Peru, and moved to New York in her teens. Now she lives in San Francisco Judy has worked with several artist collaboratives, co-designing and fabricating large scale fire and metal sculptures for Burning Man that have been installed at various sites around the world. As member of the Flaming Lotus Girls, she worked on the Serpent Mother for Burning Man and Robodock, a Technology Festival in Amsterdam. Also with the Flaming Lotus Girls she assisted with the visual design, project management, and fabrication of Mutopia, as well as the installation at Burning Man. She was also a crew member of Fishbug, a large kinetic installation that consisted of fire effects, video projection, and a fabric woven interior. Judy was a speaker at Digital Life Design conference in Munich, as an artist in the Bay Area. She also spoke at Kinnernet in Israel as an artist in the field of Art and Technology. Judy has developed projects and educational toys for Make magazine, and as an art and technology instructor she focuses on teaching workshops in Spanish. She has conducted and organized Make Play Day, the largest tinkering workshop at Maker Faire. In 2009, at Lift & Fing Marseilles, and in 2010 at Lift Geneva, Judy conducted tinkering workshops in which participants built electromechanical contraptions, which were then exhibited during the conference. Judy's approach to teaching uses hands-on projects focusing on sketching, design, and model making. She is the co-founder of Teach me to Make, an educational organization providing hands-on art and technology workshops. At the moment, she is earning her residency at the Tinkering Zone at the Exploratorium Museum of Science and Perception. In 2010, "Brain on Energy", was in the Knowledge Hacking show presented by the Worth Ryder Gallery in the Art Department at UC Berkeley. Knowledge Hacking is an experimental research and exhibition project by artists and thinkers in the Bay Area community working with artists, scientists, technologists, and researchers at the University of California jointly sponsored with the ZeroOne Festival.