SteamHead Courses · 2026 Edition · Free & Self-Paced

Advocacy by Design

One project, start to finish: find a cause you believe in, fact-check it, design for it, wire it with light, build it from rescued materials — and walk it down a runway.

Start the Course The course arc: Find Your Story, Research It, Design It, Light It Up, Build It, Show It

The Lessons

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Module 1 Find Your Story

What clothing argues, how movements wore their messages, and the cause your team will carry.

  1. Clothes Talk Everything you wear is already saying something. Learn to hear it — and decide what you want yours to say. Empathize
  2. Fashion That Fought Back From suffrage white to umbrella yellow: a tour of the moments when clothing carried a movement. Empathize
  3. Choose Your Cause The driving question of the whole course: what will YOU argue for on the runway — and who's joining your team? Define

Module 2 Research It

Advocacy runs on facts. SIFT yours before they go on fabric.

  1. True Enough to Wear Your piece will make a claim in public. SIFT is how you make sure that claim survives contact with a curious audience. Define

Module 3 Design It

Line, color, shape, texture — aimed at your story, on paper, cheaply.

  1. The Four Elements Line, color, shape, texture — the four levers every design decision pulls, and how to aim them at your story. Ideate
  2. Design for Someone Else An empathy workout: take on a client whose story isn't yours, and let their needs — not your favorites — drive the design. Empathize
  3. Sketch to Story Croquis, design notes, and the first draft of your artist statement — moving the piece from your head onto paper. Ideate

Module 4 Light It Up

From one LED and a coin cell to circuits you can wear.

  1. Your First Circuit An LED, a coin battery, and two minutes to magic. Everything electric in this course grows from this moment. Fabrication Tools
  2. Paper Circuits Copper tape turns paper into a circuit board. Build simple, parallel, and series circuits — and learn which one runways run on. Fabrication Tools
  3. Wearable Circuits Take the circuit off the paper and onto sleeves, hats, and skin — plus the fairy-light hack for lighting a look in a hurry. Fabrication Tools

Module 5 Build It

Headwear warm-up, the Trashion signature build, and real sewing.

  1. Crazy Headwear Challenge Your first full build: headwear, any materials, one rule — it has to light up, and the light has to mean something. Prototype
  2. Trashion Fashion The signature build: a runway-ready fashion tech piece made from materials headed for the trash. Prototype
  3. Cut, Stitch, Sew Sewing machine confidence without the fear: paper practice, patchwork with a story, and cutting that doesn't fight you. Fabrication Tools

Module 6 Show It

The runway walk and a gallery that celebrates the whole journey.

  1. The Runway Walk The climactic conclusion of every fashion tech season: how models carry a story down a runway. Share
  2. Gallery & Artist Statements Exhibitions are celebrations of success — plan the gallery, polish the artist statement, and practice the questions. Share

Module 7 Level Up

Optional extra credit: programmable light, sensors, and pieces that respond.

  1. Programmable Light Microcontrollers turn light from a yes/no into a story beat: animation, color, and timing under your control. Digital Tools
  2. Sensors & Switches The final frontier: pieces that respond — to touch, tilt, sound, and motion — turning the wearer into the storyteller. Digital Tools

The badge on each lesson is the Maker Badges pathway it feeds — teachers can award progress as designers go.

Printable Worksheets

Every worksheet is a web page with a print button — always current, no downloads to lose. Each one also lives inside its lesson.

About This Edition

Advocacy by Design is a complete 2026 rewrite of the MakeFashion Edu Introduction Course, restructured around a single project arc and extended with a wearable-electronics module. It draws its activities, student stories, and hard-won classroom wisdom from the original 2022 course by the MakeFashion Edu team — Twila Busby, Carrie Leung, Elisa Busby, James Simpson, and collaborators — which remains available in full.

Written by Blake, SteamHead's openly disclosed AI teammate, and human-reviewed before publication — the same rule as everything Blake writes here. Today, MakeFashion Edu's programs, courses, and runway events are run by SteamHead, in collaboration with MakeFashion.

Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, like the Design Immersion Curriculum it builds on. Hardware sourcing lives on The Shelf.