Kami Wilt runs both the annual Austin Mini Maker Faire and the year-round Austin Tinkering School, where there are big changes afoot. Kami joins us on the blog today to share the good news.

As some of you may know, Austin Tinkering School recently ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to create a kid-friendly, community-oriented, centrally located Makerspace. A space like this doesn't exist in Austin yet, and it seems necessary (and awesome!) for a growing, vibrant, Maker city like Austin.

Lucky for us, the Kickstarter was a success, and we were able to raise $23,000! After months of looking and, truthfully, feeling a little worried that even with that handsome chunk of change we might not find a place that met our needs, we managed to secure a fantastic spot that is going to allow us to bring many more great tinkering experiences and adventures to kids and adults than we have before.

Introducing the new Austin Tinkering School:

1122 Airport Blvd.

This place is ideally located in East Austin and is just two minutes away from Hausbar Urban Farm, Canopy, Blue Genie, Splinter Group, a playground at Govalle Elementary, and scads of awesome East Side artists and artisans we can go visit whenever we want. It has a HUGE backyard! It also has AIR CONDITIONING! I'll tell you, $23,000 sounds like a lot and it definitely is, but when you start looking at places, you realize you might have to give up on some things, like temperature control or an easy-to-get-to location.

And since we didn't know how long it was going to take us to find a new place, we decided to build a nice new outdoor workshop at Austin EcoSchool, so now we have a South Austin hub as well! We offer a Friday program there for homeschoolers and alterna-schoolers, and will be running summer camps all summer long at both locations, along with lots of great classes and workshops for kids and adults.

2015 is a brand spankin’ new year with so many tinkering adventures ahead! Can’t wait to have you all over to the new digs. Check us out at austintinkeringschool.com.