Choose Your Pathway

Begin by reviewing TOM’s three options: a Build Party, a Makeathon, or a Community Makerspace. Each offers a different scale of commitment and impact. Assess your community’s resources — available space, partners, tools, and volunteers. If you have limited capacity, start small; if you already run a lab, aim for a permanent space.

Invite several local collaborators — educators, disability advocates, or makers — to a short planning meeting. Discuss local needs and decide which format could create the greatest benefit. Use TOM’s planning templates to visualize your timeline, materials, and costs.

If unsure which to start with, begin with a pilot event and scale later. Reach out to TOM mentors or the ChangeX community for personalized guidance.

Document your decision, your goals, and your first concrete milestone — such as setting a date or booking a venue. This shared clarity launches your journey with confidence and focus.

Plan and Prepare

Once you’ve chosen your approach, form an organizing team and assign clear roles: coordinator, logistics, communications, technical lead, and documentation. Book an accessible venue and check for essential infrastructure — power supply, safety, and accessible entrances. Develop a timeline with recruitment, material sourcing, and outreach milestones.

Hold planning meetings to align on goals, inclusion principles, and safety guidelines. Recruit diverse participants: students, designers, engineers, caregivers, and Need-Knowers. Use TOM’s available resources to create a checklist for equipment, setup, and accessibility.

If tool access is limited, partner with a local FabLab, university, or high-school workshop. If registration lags, highlight learning, collaboration, and social impact in your communications. For tight budgets, seek small local sponsors or in-kind donations.

Finalize logistics and share your plan with all volunteers. Confirm that safety, accessibility, and inclusion are central. Careful preparation ensures your event or makerspace runs smoothly and sets a positive, collaborative tone.

Design and Build

Gather prototyping materials — cardboard, foam, basic electronics, 3D-printing filament, and hand tools. Arrange workstations with clear tool zones and safety signage. Create small, mixed teams of Makers and Need-Knowers and brief them on the design process: empathy → ideation → prototype → test.

Start with empathy exercises where Need-Knowers describe challenges from daily life. Encourage brainstorming through “How might we…” questions. Guide teams to create quick, rough prototypes first, test immediately, and iterate often. Facilitators should circulate to offer advice, capture insights, and maintain energy. Encourage participants to share progress informally — the most creative ideas often emerge through open conversation.

If teams overcomplicate solutions, refocus them on simplicity, affordability, and usability. If equipment fails, switch to paper, foam, or manual mock-ups. Manage fatigue by pacing work sessions and ensuring inclusive participation — every voice matters.

Conclude with a demo session where each team presents their prototype and what they learned. Capture stories, feedback, and images for documentation. Emphasize that every design, even unfinished, contributes to the growing global library of TOM solutions.

Document and Share

Collect all files, notes, and media from your build. Assign a documentation lead for each project. Download TOM’s documentation template and choose an open license such as Creative Commons BY-SA.

Run a documentation sprint where each team records:

• The problem addressed

• Materials and costs

• Step-by-step assembly instructions

• Safety and maintenance tips

Include clear photos or diagrams. Upload everything to the TOM Global Portfolio and your ChangeX project page.

If details are missing, re-build a simple version while recording each step. If photos are unclear, use line drawings or labeled diagrams. If documentation quality varies, assign peer reviewers between teams.

Celebrate your results publicly. Share your documentation link on social media, tag TOM Global and ChangeX, and invite others to replicate your design. Publishing your work ensures local creativity contributes to global accessibility.

Grow and Sustain 

After your event or first builds, plan for continuity. Identify partners — schools, NGOs, or municipal programs — who can host regular sessions or integrate TOM activities into their missions. Develop a simple sustainability plan covering funding, storage, maintenance, and outreach.

Hold a debrief session to gather participant feedback and lessons learned. Schedule future builds or workshops and explore forming a permanent TOM Community. Encourage experienced participants to mentor newcomers and document progress.

: If enthusiasm drops, maintain momentum with monthly micro-builds, repair events, or showcases. If funding runs low, leverage your open documentation and impact stories to attract local sponsors or grants. If tools wear out, organize a community “tool-drive.”

Track your impact — devices built, people involved, solutions replicated. Share these metrics on ChangeX and TOM Global. As your initiative grows, it can evolve into a self-sustaining hub of inclusion and innovation, contributing to a global effort to “repair the world.”