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By: Alina Buzgar, News & Features Editor

On a typical Arizona style sunny afternoon of March 27, 2015, T-Birds met on the lawn in front of the Commons to challenge themselves, and in true artistic fashion create something out of nothing at a unique public arts event: CRAFTx.

courtesy Steve Luna

courtesy Steve Luna

 

courtesy Steve Luna

courtesy Steve Luna

Armed with gallons of ice cold delicious lemonade carefully squeezed out of lemons by Leah Funk (MA ’15, U.S.), and with good cheer and enthusiasm, T-Birds set out to work  while listening to happy tunes. The joyful atmosphere was aided by music, dance, and funny stories everyone enjoyed, but there were also moments of intense concentration: the group was trying to figure out how to build a giant (human sized!) “X” out of cardboard, staples, glue, duct tape and some spray paint. Check out this cool video showing the team hard at work.

After five hours of painstaking work not just one beautiful “X” emerged but two! The second one was built out of reclaimed cardboard boxes put together ingeniously by the team. Mohammed Al-Sari (MBA ’15) and his amazing design backed by his engineering skills saved the day as he carefully measured components and ultimately engineered the X. Luck will have it that at Thunderbird you are bound to find so many different skills that you need not worry getting the work done even if it is outside of your comfort zone.

courtesy Savijeet Singh

courtesy Savijeet Singh

Leah Funk explains: “CRAFTx was created out of our desire to have something to connect the Thunderbird community to the TEDxYouth@Glendale event. They’d seen all the stuff about it on Facebook and heard about it from friends, but there had been nothing to specifically tie them to the event, to give it real meaning to them. And that’s what CRAFTx was about. We wanted them to see us, ask questions, watch us… and they did just that. The crowd we got throughout the day was more than I expected.”

“The purpose behind CRAFTx was to get students, even those not directly involved with TEDx, to get together and show their creativity and artistic skills, while creating publicity for TEDx. We had a good turnout of enthusiastic volunteers joining hands and the end result was two pieces of art that are being displayed on campus.The event wasn’t something we are typically used to seeing on campus and was a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon” added Abdul (MBA ’15, India).

We thank all the volunteers and the participants to this delightful project. If you would like to find out more about TEDxYouth@Glendale check out this article or follow the links below:

 

VISIT www.tedxyouthglendale.com

E-MAIL hello@tedxyouthglendale.com

LIKE facebook.com/tedxyouthglendale

TWEET @tedxyouthglendale

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