Week 6, Day 1: Help! I'm Being Digested

It is so hard to wait until Monday afternoon.

Yes, in our minds, we all know we have to go through tool training and eat some food in order to be safe and awake enough to actually build something and speak to each other in friendly, non-hangry* tones, but we got here SO. READY. TO BUILD. SOMETHING.

AND WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS YET

All morning, tinkerers work hard to create community agreements, and to focus on practicing with drills, clamps, chopsaw, and paint setup and cleanup procedures, when so much of what they really want is to know what this weeks theme is. They are so excited.

And all morning, collaborators work hard to focus on the exact same things, when so much of what they really want is to share what this weeks theme is. They are so excited.

But collaborators manage to keep the secret safe, while tinkerers, despite not knowing the exact STRUCTURES we will be building, nonetheless are already accomplishing, in their park time and tool-training interactions, the core goals of tinkering camp: collaboration and friendship, embrace of failure and mistakes as learning opportunities, extraordinary effort, and the construction of something “bigger than yourself.” 

One of the “bigger-than-us” things that we build is community, and no one has to wait to start on that project. Nor do they wait. All morning long, tinkerers have been seen helping each other, trying hard, and making friends.

But another “bigger-than-us” thing we build comes from our theme, and it's really fun, so when afternoon circle comes we all sit rapt, ready to find out the story that will drive our efforts for the next five days.

And we are not disappointed, for this week at tinkering camp, after hours of waiting, we finally find out: we are going to GET DIGESTED.

Swallowed, as it were, in the Tinkering School.

* hangry = hungry + angry