UTeach Maker Portfolio
Maker Projects
Welcome to the Projects page! This projects tab is split into two sections. The first section is the "Artisty" section, which describes the projects that I have done in my personal time with the intention of communicating a concept/idea/feeling/message. The next section is the "Design" section, which describes projects that have a practical purpose and functionality. The slide show below shows a preview of some of the projects I have done within my time at UTeach Maker.
Describe your image
Artistry
Bullet Journaling/Scrapbooking - Where I started
When I joined maker, I had also freshly gotten into bullet journaling, which is what I considered to be my main form of art. I started out sketching my design and outlining it. As I continued bullet journaling, I started to create more intricate designs, and I would add some scrapbooking elements to it. I then created my own scrapbook for personal memory keeping. I found bullet journaling and scrapbooking to be a good outlet for me to express my storytelling, where each month would have a theme and I would tell my own story for each month.
Stationery
I first started making custom cards on Canva during spring 2022. I just used a similar design to a piece of notebook paper, and I would make silly puns on the front of the card. The inside of the card would be empty so that I could write my own personal message for people to read. I kept most of the same things for the second iteration of my own card designs, but I decided to change the design on the front and remove the notebook lines because I thought it would be overwhelming to the person receiving the card. I kept the puns, and I added my own personal touch to the back of the card. I further expanded my personal touch when I started making my own custom envelopes and sealing it with my own wax seal. I like having the personal touch because it makes the card feel meaningful to the person receiving it.
Writing
I first started writing when I was in middle school. I started out rewriting popular songs and making them about my interests. When I got to high school, I took a creative writing class, and I got the chance to explore different forms of writing, ranging from short stories to flash fictions to poetry. Poetry had connected with me the most because I realized the impact behind structures and word choices. I didn't revisit writing poetry until my junior year of college when I started journaling. During my senior year, I would start posting my own poems on social media and performing spoken word at open mic events. In addition, this prompted me to write my own book where I compile some of my journal entries and drafts of poems so that people can connect with it. Whenever I write, there is always a concept in mind that I want to express. Depending on the process, I will either write subconsciously on the page, or I will brainstorm some ideas down before I start writing drafts. I will then revise the draft until I get a version of the poem that I like. Even when I perform the same poem more than once, I will make minor changes to it even after I read it aloud to an audience. My writing process has helped me get more comfortable with making multiple changes to a lesson when it comes to lesson implementation. There are times during my student teaching when I have taught 3 different versions of the same lesson with minor changes. Having writing as a creative outlet has helped me apply it to other areas of my life.
String Art
For Christmas 2021, I wanted to get my friends gifts, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I decided to upcycle a piece of wood that my dad wasn't using into string art. I cut the wood into four pieces, and I then sanded it down using a machine. Then, I printed out the images that I thought my friends would like and nailed it to the wood. Then I outlined their design in different colors of string, and I filled it in. I ended up saving a lot of money compared to just buying my friends multiple gifts, and they really enjoyed that their gift was handmade.
Design
Sewing & Embroidery
My introduction to sewing came when I had to make my Foundry apron for my internship. I wanted to take up sewing because I have always wanted to try it out. Tons of people in my family enjoy sewing, which inspired me to try it out for myself. I was given an instruction manual on how to create my Foundry apron, and I immediately started. I sketched out a design on what I wanted my apron to look like and began tracing and cutting the fabric. Once the fabric was cut, I would serge the edges of the fabric and hem the sides to make the apron look nice. I then attached the straps and added pockets. At first, I made the pockets too small, but they were still able to hold a writing utensil. After I added on all of the pockets, I started to embroider on it. I had prior experience with embriodery, but I needed a refresher on how to use the software and embroidery machine. Once I got the hang of it, I would start to embroider my apron, and I would experiment with different settings to change the appearance of the design. During the whole process, the Foundry supervisor would come in and check on me every so frequently to see my progress.
Vinyl Cutting
My first experience with vinyl cutting was when I was cutting out cardstock to make name tents. Then, I started making my own stickers for my laptop. I used a Silhouette Vinyl Cutter, and once I got super comfortable, I then created my own posters and custom made posters for people. This was all made using regular vinyl material. I transitioned to heat transfer vinyl to make my own t-shirts, and tote bags. The biggest challenge for me during this transition was trying to figure out which method of heat transfer worked best for me. Initially, there were a lot of mistakes made during the heat transfer process, where the heat was not hot enough to make the vinyl stick to the heat. I first experimented with heat transfer vinyl in the Foundry with their vinyl cutter and their iron. I then worked with Cindy to use Critcut materials with vinyl cutting. It seems that their materials work well together because they are the same brand. However, with different brands, I still struggled to find what works for me. It wasn't until I started doing vinyl cutting with Julio that I managed to figure out that there are products that are better suited for heat transfer vinyl. Making T shirts and working with fabric
3-D Printing
I have had prior experiences 3-D printing, and for this project, I wanted to create a keychain as a lockbox prize for a Wednesday Workshop activity. I first designed the keychain on TinkerCAD, and made sure that the letters on the key chain could all fit on it. The keyhole is actually a hexagon, which was intentionally designed as a UTeach easter egg. When I was 3-D printing the key chains, I realized that I could pause the printing process and change the filament to make the letters a different color than the support. I printed about 30 keychains because I had anticipated 30 attendees.
Laser Cutting
My first experience laser cutting came from making the tower backdrop for a World Teacher's Day event in 2022. It was the 25th anniversary of UTeach, and my supervisor had asked me to create a backdrop of UT tower lit up at night with the number 25 displayed on the windows. I initially thought I would have to sketch the tower by hand, so I made a rough sketch in my sketchbook entirely by hand (without a ruler and a compass). I then realized that I could use this small sketch and convert it to an image. This was then projected onto a laser cutting software where I had to split the image into 4 different parts. We ended up breaking the tower into four pieces for laser cutting, and afterwards, we would assemble all of the parts together. I then painted on the wood and created a night sky backdrop for the tower. Then the other ambassadors added the "How has UTeach changed you?" letters on the backdrop and cut out stars for people to write on and add to the backdrop for community engagement. My next laser cutting experience was at the DRIVEN school. I went to the driven school to create my own design with the laser cutter. I mainly wanted to explore the laser cutting software over there and see what I could come up with.
Large Scale Paper Crafts
Large scale paper crafts include massive paper craft projects that are huge and/or took over several days to complete. The first of the two kinds of paper craft projects include posterboard letters. This was intended to be used for phototaking and display for UTeach events. I was assigned this project by my supervisor, and he wanted me to create large letters that spelled "UTeach". I first sketched the letters by hand, where I started with the "c" by sketching it and cutting it out. Then, I used it as a reference to sketch out the other letters. Each of the letters were individually sketched and separately cut one by one. After, they were cut, I mixed red and yellow paint to coat the letters in orange. The other large scale paper craft projects have been interactive event designs. The first project is a handcrafted chalk board for Teacher Appreciation Week. This is entirely assembled out of brown and black butcher paper. I used liquid chalk markers to put together the words on the design, and I finished the design by leaving chalk marks on the black butcher paper. People could then put sticky notes on it to interact with the design. The second design is a photobooth backdrop I made for the 2022 Back to School Bash. I was asked to assemble a giant photobooth backdrop for event attendees to take photos. The photo props were drawings of school supplies, so I decided that the photobooth backdrop would be a giant piece of notebook paper. I taped together several giant sticky notes to assemble a piece of paper, and I used meter sticks to draw the lines on the ruled lines to make it look like notebook paper. The holes of the notebook paper were created by tracing a roll of painter's tape. Overall, I was very satisfied with how it turned out. The lines looked straight, and the backdrop gave off a "Back to School" look that I was trying to achieve.
Small Scale Paper Crafts
The small scale paper crafts are projects that are small in size and/or did not take several days to complete. The first of the small scale projects is a paper quilling project I did for a UTeach event in March 2022. The ambassador team had wanted to create a passive activity that was easy for people to talk to and engage in. I had created a paper craft activity with instructions for event attendees to work on. The sample design was a heart created out of red strips of paper on blue cardstock. It helped the attendees get more familiarized with the workroom space as well as some other members of the UTeach community. The activity was a success, and several people from the Step 1 classes attended and talked to other people in the community. The second of the small scale paper craft projects is a decorated shoe box for index card submissions. I made this for the ambassador team to use as a suggestion box for events. I took an old shoebox that I had and carved a hole in it the size of an index card. Then, I covered it in black cardstock using a lot of tape. I smeared the black cardstock with chalk dust to give the box a chalkboard look, and I finished it with leftover hexagon cutouts. I attached a "Teach 'Em" sticker to the box as a finishing touch. This cardboard box was first used at the Spring 2022 Town Hall, and the ambassadors have kept the box ever since. The third small scale paper craft projects are floral table toppers for a Spring UTeach staff lunch. They were made using tissue paper and layering it on each other. The tissue paper was then folded and tied into a fan pattern, and the edges were cut to resemble the edge of a flower petal. Then, they were made by pulling the edges up from the inner layer to the outer layer to form a flower. The tissue paper was layered from darkest to lightest in the form of a gradient so that there would be a nice transition from the center of the flower to the outer later of the flower. The decorative chocolate bars was a small scale paper project that was created to give to the Step students at the end of the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters. Dr. Alex Eusebi came to me in the fall of 2021 asking me to decorate 180 chocolate bars to make them look like Bevo (UT's mascot). My team of colleagues assembled had to cut the paper used to wrap the bars and assemble the ears, glue on the googly eyes, attach a "Thank you" sticker to wrap the chocolate bar, and wrap the bar in curling ribbon. The first time we did this was super tedious and required a lot of effort, so we made tweaks for the second time we did it. We liked that the chocolate bar could slide out of the wrapper, so we decided to keep that for the second iteration of the wrapper for the spring semester. For the spring semester, in honor of Teacher Appreciation week, we decided to make the design a piece of notebook paper with drawings on top of it. Then, the text on the wrapper would be printed in a handwritten font. This ended up saving us a lot of time. All we had to do was wrap the bar and finish it off with a sticker. The sticker on the wrapper was a "Nutrition Facts" label as benefits for taking the UTeach step courses. I managed to finish the design for the wrapper and the sticker in two days, and it also took me two days to assemble and wrap all of the chocolate bars. The second iteration of the chocolate bar decoration went by much more efficiently, and they looked much more cleaner than the first iteration. This made me become a lot more familiar with Canva and its features.
Video Game Development
I build maps on Roblox Studio in my free time. I typically design race tracks for people to use and play on. The track is first developed by putting together parts, and after I am done putting together all of the parts, I will add a timing and scoring system, which is a model that I have saved in my toolbox. I will then add in my own cars that I have developed for testing the track specifically. The car models were made in 2017, and fortunately, they are still able to be used for testing today. After the testing stage, I will make changes and update the track. Then the track will be tested again, and after all of the testing is over, I save the track and upload it to Roblox Create for people to use. The first track on display is Houston Park Raceway, and it is currently in testing. I am also working on another track that is currently still in the works.