DIY Instructables Challenge

February 16^th was the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Day, the most significant traditional holiday celebrated in China. I really missed my home during this special season. So I decided to make something from my culture. The first idea that came to my mind is the Chinese good luck knot that we use to decorate our rooms during the holiday season. Back in China, I just bought the ready-made ones from the market and had never thought of making one by myself. These knots can be made very large with intricate skills and processes. But due to my limited time and resources I will have to start from the easiest. A Chinese knot DIY website lead me to a YouTube tutorial, which turned out very helpful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEmLpT_eCzY). It was created by an old gentleman who refers to himself as “Teacher Yang” (a literal translation from Chinese), and according to his own introduction in the video, he has conducted research and experimented with DIY Chinese good luck knot for over 30 years. He has even published several books about it. This reminds me of one of the motivations behind the maker movement: “The maker movement is spread by demand at the grassroots level as people come to realize its potential and how engaging it is to make your own stuff (Peppler & Bender, 2013, p.23).” Obviously, Teacher Yang enjoys his work and feels so good about sharing his achievements. The knot has stopped being a consumer product for him as was to me, but instead, has become something whose making engages him for so many decades and from which he benefited economically (by publishing books and videos, for example). This agrees with the observation by Peppler and Bender: “This orientation toward personal fabrication rather than blind consumerism is also seen as the foundation for a new, more prosperous economy (p.23).

In the Maker space he created in his YouTube channel,  he offers various levels of courses ranging from the primary to the advanced. In each video tutorial, a close shot is offered so that viewers can see clearly the continuous steps required to make the kind of knot. Unlike the origami with each step dividable and discrete, tying the knots involves closely connected and continuous procedures. It follows that if you miss one loop or get a wrong direction for once, you will fail the whole task. It took me quite a long time to learn to tie the two knots in the picture, even though they are seemingly so easy to make. 

This accentuates the importance of the well-elaborated close-shot tutorial videos. In this case, Teacher Yang guided me so well that I, a beginner, kept trying until I finally learned to make the target knot. I became fascinated by the knotting skills and I decided to learn another one after I succeeded with the first one. My learning experience here supports the idea that DIY design in school does not simply mean leaving students totally by themselves with an assortment of materials, as embodied in the “swim-or-sink” hacker culture characteristic of the maker/FabLab movement, as researches show that novices or children from the marginalized groups can easily get frustrated and lose self-esteem if they are left unattended and unguided in the lab (Blikstein & Worsley, 2015, p.6). One of the implications for DIY design at school is that we do not simply suppose that children will learn from their mistakes by “glorifying mistakes” (P.7). What’s more, the hierarchical courses offered by Teacher Yang will allow a learner to experience the pleasure of achievement associated with the transformation from a novice to an expert as a result of the step-by-step learning. Here, the “key-chain syndrome” has been replaced by a deep project, as is suggested by Blikstein and Worsley (2015).

There are other merits of the knot DIY. As we can see, the making does not require sophisticated and expensive devices or equipment as implied in the “publisher’s culture”  born within the technological “counterculture” of Silicon Valley (Blikstein & Worsley, 2015, p. 3). All it needs is a stretch of string (I made my knots with shoe laces as I couldn’t find the usual strings) and it is very much grassroots, accessible to anyone, young or old, man or woman. Peppler & Bender (2013) argue that “maker activities organically invite cross-generational and cross-cultural participation, ranging from parents with expertise in fixing or modifying cars, to grandparents who sew or crochet, to aunts and uncles who carve at home in a woodshop (p.27).” Maker spaces like this is not job-driven. As a learner, I relished the fun of learning itself, the learning of an intricate skill in making something pertaining to my own culture. I would like to quote from Peppler and Bender (2013) again to thank Teacher Yang, one of the makers who drive the maker movement, “who pull these ideas into their communities, adapt them to suit local needs and interests, and literally build out the spaces and activities to engage young makers in active, hands-on learning experiences (p.26).”

Peppler, K. & Bender, S. (2013). Maker movement spreads innovation one project at a time. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(3), pp. 22-27.

Blikstein, P & Worsley, M. (2015). Children are not hackers: Building a culture of powerful ideas, deep learning, and equity in the Maker Movement. Makeology: Volume 1, Chapter 5.