Hi all, we’ve had this request from Sugru. Anyone interested?
This September we are hoping to launch a mini repair school on Sugru.com where we share some tips for people looking to fix everything from their furniture to their clothing.
We would love to share some tips for the tech section from one of your regular volunteers. Think entry level tips, encouraging people to have a go themselves before throwing something away like a phone or toaster.
We would be very happy to pay them for their time and insight and would make it really easy by sending a Q&A. It would be great if it was somebody who didn’t mind sharing a picture of themselves so we can help add a personal touch and also somebody who may have some step by step shots of a phone repair or something equally as common.
It’s a great idea, certainly.
I wanted to try using Sugru to patch up the badly broken spout on a plastic kettle.
But I’m camera-phobic, so all I could do is to lend the broken kettle as a sample for trial repairing by someone fairly local who doesn’t mind being photographed.
I might be up for that - I’m not camera-shy. I can wite coherent English and create step-by-step illustrated guides. (I have a pretty respectable rep on ifixit.com.) I’m not sure though what items would best lend themselves to entry level guides. Is it simply launching in September and maybe going on for a few months, or is the whole repair school to happen within the month? If the latter, I’d need to think about the time commitment.
Hi Philip, they’ve clarified what they need and timings - and it’s quite tight:
"we’re keen to collate the following assets by 26th August
a headshot of the person providing the advice / or one of them at a Restart party is also good
5 x top tips on keeping your tech repaired and in good shape eg, maybe it’s subscribing to aYoutube channel or attending a workshop?
5 x easy-to-use tools that will help you tinker with your tech
1 x step by step guide to an entry level project such as repairing a cracked phone screen (we know people search for this a lot!). If there are pictures to support the step by step that would be wonderful.
An extra opportunity might be for the person to do an Instagram live with Jane in September as part of our Who Gives a Fix? episode.
Brilliant, do you mean you’d be interested in contributing tech tips, or are you interested in learning from the resources? If you’d like to contribute, they’ve pushed back the deadline until 10th September, and are particularly keen on a step by step for fixing a cracked phone screen. Let me know and we can chat more if you’d like to contribute.
Thanks x
Hey Philip, in case you were put off by all the requirements and short deadline, Sugru have now said:
We can put our tech week as the 3rd week in September to give you more time. So deadline 10 Sept ish.
The main thing we need for content is a step by step to fix a cracked phone screen. The rest of it we can put together.
Are you up for this?
Thanks,
Fi
I’d be in the second category - I’m interested in learning from resources. When I originally signed up for Restarters I had hoped to be able to sit in on sessions and learn how to fix - I’ve attended four sessions so far and brought in items of my own, but would be willing to help with other attendees’ items if I could attain the skills.
At the moment I can only check wiring of a plug and change a fuse. My laptop has stopped working and it seems to be a problem with the fan - the fixer at the recent event I attended (West Hampstead, Sat 20/8) said I needed to clean the fan and she showed me the kind of brush I could use. I didn’t take the laptop to the session because I attended towards the end and really wanted to pick up some hints. I’ll open up the case and if I succeed in locating the fan and getting it working again I can send some shots if this would be of help.
OK great. It sounds like our next Rosie the Restarters event might be what you need. It’s about laptop maintenance, so cleaning a fan would fit perfectly. It’s on 6th September in Brixton. More details and you can sign up here - https://restarters.net/party/view/4483
Good luck!
Just back from hols and catching up. I’m not sure I’d regard replacing a cracked screen as an “entry level” repair. And I don’t have one to demonstrate on. Each smartphone is different so a step by step guide is going to be of limited use. But if the objective is not to show how to do it but rather to show that it might not be a hard as you think and to point readers at iFixit or somewhere similar, I can see it might be useful.
Maybe cleaning a laptop fan might be a more suitable topic. A couple of other people replied and I’d be more than happy for one (or more) of them to tackle this - and maybe even then to recruit them as Wiki authors!
Headshot - not a problem. Top tips and tools - could probably come up with some, and maybe ask for suggestions on Talk.