By Marvin Villanueva, Dec. 6, 2022
The Student Innovation Idea Labs hosted a Gingerbread Building Workshop at the Maker Studio on Dec. 1 to celebrate the holidays and allow students to make festive treats.
The Bronco Makers Guild, a student organization under the SIIL and formally known as the Bronco Makers Club, organized the event for students to decorate gingerbread houses, people and sweaters in any way they wanted. Tubes of frosting, multicolored candy and snacks were provided to attendees.
Hosting the event right before winter break and final exams, aerospace engineering student and Bronco Makers Guild organizer, Inna Falcone says the event is intended for students of any major to calm their nerves and destress before exam season.
“It’s an opportunity to bring people from multiple majors and multiple grades together,” Falcone said. “I’ve been in so many different clubs where it’s like only engineering, only aerospace, and with this I’ve met so many different people of different majors, of different backgrounds and it’s just a really unique opportunity to meet so many different people.”
Hospitality student Anisha Manna, one of the event’s attendees, shared similar sentiments about wanting to attend the workshop. As finals continue to loom over the heads of students, Manna believes events like these are fun ways to unwind after the pressures of school.
“It’s a good stress relief and it’s nice to hang out with new people and make some new connections,” Manna said. “And we’re all in the same boat so it’s nice to meet with other people and socialize.”
Grouped within a table, students were encouraged to meet one another and decorate cookies together. For biotechnology student Kaitlyn Miller’s gingerbread cookies, her aesthetic direction was to go with the flow while Manna wanted to create “a beautiful mess,” when decorating treats.
Falcone says that the event is also a fun advertisement for the Maker Studio in University Library. As the space may be daunting for some students, events planned by the Bronco Makers Guild and SIIL intend to show off the space for students and provide resources and guides on how to use the equipment of the studio.
The event also intended to promote creativity in students as the Bronco Makers Guild is an organization that is dedicated to encouraging expression and innovation to any student who wants to create anything physical.
“Sometimes we try and be informational, so we’ll have a sewing workshop or something like that,” said Dillion Murdock, mechanical engineering student and Bronco Makers Guild organizer. “Or like a laser coding workshop where we kind of try to teach people new skills but still just generally try to have fun and destress.”
Murdock says the Bronco Makers Guild provides informational events like these alongside lighthearted events like the Gingerbread Building Workshop or The Bob Ross Paint Night on Dec. 8, an event where students will paint alongside one of Ross’ painting videos, to give students skills alongside a needed fun activity.
After learning about the event online, Miller also shared that this was the main reason to take part in the workshop.
“I saw online and I thought it would be a really fun event,” Miller said. “I haven’t done much baking since I haven’t been home a lot for the semester since I’m on campus and I thought it would be a fun event to attend.”
Murdock also said that since the Bronco Makers Guild is made up of students from different majors such as visual communication design, biochemistry and business, outreach for the events is varied and any student is welcomed to join.
Information about the SIIL, and details about how to join the Bronco Makers Guild and future events are shared through their respective Discord servers, where all students are encouraged to be a part of. Details about future events like this and the Bob Ross Paint Night are also posted on myBAR.
Additional information on equipment training is found on SIIL’s webpage on the CPP website.
Feature image courtesy of Joseph Mcvey