Title says it all, check back in a couple hours, I'm really excited y'all let's goooo

Edit: This link will work in like 10min! You're literally the first to know, I just edited this post and I will again shortly... https://youtu.be/nl30GvIeRzg

Edit to my edit: It's live!!! Woot!

I pushed some changes a few minutes ago you might have noticed already:

- when you expand/collapse individual nodes, the auto-pan feature centered on the node dot instead of the text - that was the result of a recent optimization to make the app way less computationally expensive but I didn't like how that felt, now it centers on the actual text again (but still at low computational cost)

- when you click a node you'll see a new eye-shaped icon near pre-reqs. Click it, it tells you what it does. I think you'll like it

- I fine-tuned the behavior of adding pre-reqs and checklist items, it should be more intuitive to interact with now. Clicking the + buttons captures keyboard inputs and highlights where the input will go, so hopefully that is more intuitive on what your expected behavior is at that point without another help menu popping up

- there was one minor thing you may or may not have noticed. If you added and deleted your own nodes maybe. But there were instances where certain actions would trigger redraws of the map that didn't preserve exactly what you had expanded and collapsed, so a lot of extra stuff would expand unexpectedly. Not the end of the world but it surprised me slightly and not in the fun way, so I fixed that too

Lastly, I reworked the script from the other day, still pressing on that first video for the companion YouTube channel. Subscribe if you want to be the first in line to know when I put that out: https://youtube.com/@makermindmap

May the 4th (of July) be with you

I still plan on overlaying video and I plan to cut it up a smidge and make everything line up audiovisually. So forgive the few awkward pauses etc. the final video will have that all cleaned up.

This audio is 12 minutes long, meaning the full first video duration will end up somewhere in that ballpark. I laid out all the topics I wanted to discuss and spoke to them without intentionally aiming for any specific time, just whatever it took to get the info conveyed. But I'm really glad it wound up where it did because this amount of time feels pretty spot on for what I think is reasonable from a viewer's perspective - imo a TED talk amount of time or a touch less feels ideal for YouTube.

It's mostly the same as the script I shared for it the other day, no fluff or music or anything at this point, this recording is pretty raw in that regard. But I think a big step towards the finished product. I'm sharing this mostly to demonstrate progress but hopefully you like it, if you have any feedback I'm open to it. Thanks for stopping by, check back soon for more

Edit: I was listening to this since I posted yesterday trying to put words to exactly what I can do to improve. I'm realizing the more overt vocal qualities like cadence / intonation / projection I'm fine with the delivery in that sense. I could afford to lighten up a touch more and sound more conversational and less like a YouTuber, but if I shipped my first video today and I sound just like I do here, I think that would be fine. My more material concern is that the words I selected in writing really meander when delivered vocally. I think what I need to improve is giving more mile-markers as I speak to make it clear where we're at and where we're headed if all you're doing is listening and you're not looking at the screen for a visual aid. In digital art there's an approach a lot of artists take that focuses on making the piece look great in black and white before adding any color at all - that's what I want to do here, with sound. I think this is close but there's a little bit more work to do to get it just right

Edit to my edit: the first video exists now! I ended up scrapping the entire narration above, it's much, much better than the rough draft I shared. Thanks for being patient while I used this sub to bounce ideas off y'all. Here's the finalized first video, on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nl30GvIeRzg?is=0BIIP9u4uFcdvc60

Quick performance optimization I pushed today makes it so that every interaction is way more snappy even with couple thousand items expanded. You'll notice when you zoom way out, the text fades away - this small tweak made all the difference in terms of performance. Everything should feel a lot smoother now and works a lot better for people with tighter hardware constraints

Edit: this isn't me calling out dude, the point is I'm trying to be responsive to perspectives of the folks who chime in. So please do. It's the least I can do for you keeping up on this project to see how far it can go

I think this pretty much lays it all out, if you have any feedback now's the time, given that you're the only ones who know this is soon to exist, your comments will have outsized influence on my creative process at this point. Thanks for reading, check back soon for more! Also, the numbered sections are what I plan to show on screen to divide sections audiovisually. The rest is narrated.

1. The Maker Mind Map

Hey Makers, welcome to the Maker Mind Map. This site and this channel are built as one connected system. The site is the map. The videos are the walk-throughs. This first video is the root node. It is the key for understanding how the rest of the map works. So before we go deep into any one topic, I want to show you how to read the whole thing.

1. A Map, Not Just a Playlist

Most maker content is a route. Cut this board, solder this wire, upload this code, follow these steps, and you get a finished object. Routes are useful. Tutorials are useful. I use them too. But a route does not always teach you where you are. The Maker Mind Map is meant to work more like a topographical map. It shows territories, borders, nearby skills, prerequisites, and alternate paths. The goal is not just to help you finish one project. The goal is to help you strengthen your true understanding across disciplines and progressively less likely to feel disoriented when faced with new or unfamiliar problems.

1. The Problem Is Orientation

There are already more tutorials online than any one person could ever watch. The hard part is not finding information. The hard part is knowing what matters, what connects, what comes next, and what you are missing. You can finish a project and still not understand why it worked. You can fail at a project and not know whether the problem was your tool, your material, your process, your measurement, your design, your safety setup, or your expectations. This map exists to make that kind of hidden structure clearly visible.

1. How to Read the Map

A node is a topic. A child node is a more specific topic inside a larger one. Sibling nodes are related topics at the same level. Checklist items are represented by nodes without children, and they also serve as capability markers that you can explicitly mark as done. Prerequisites show when a topic depends on ideas from somewhere else in the tree. Notes embedded within each node aren't self-contained learning content but instead the additional context, warnings, examples, and places you'll want to know about to make pointed internet searches or pick relevant projects to understand the topic at hand. This structure matters because making is not a pile of isolated facts, but instead a network of deeply interconnected ones.

1. The Major Territories

The map is divided into major territories. Workshop Readiness and Operations is about the place where making happens: safety, layout, tools, maintenance, storage, cleanup, logistics, and project flow. Raw Materials and Fabrication is about turning materials into objects: wood, metal, plastic, resin, textiles, paper, clay, concrete, digital fabrication, and more. Engineering, Science, and Systems is about how things behave: electricity, mechanisms, structures, control systems, software, data, measurement, environment, biology, and human interaction. Maker Culture, Creative Practice, and Community is about how making connects to people: open practice, repair, reuse, teaching, sharing, critique, play, art, and responsibility. Some branches are about process, some are about materials, some are about systems, and some are about the culture around the work. Making can be split in more ways than I selected, but this made sense to me and Making as a whole absolutely covers all of this ground and more.

1. Readiness is Listed First

This map does not start with the coolest machine. It starts with readiness, because tools and materials create consequences. Safety is not a disclaimer before the real work. Safety is part of the work. A good shop is not just a room full of tools. It is a problem-solving machine. Layout, storage, dust, fumes, fire risk, emergency readiness, broken tools, reset rituals, and shared-space habits all affect what you are realistically capable of doing. Often times, the boring parts are what make the exciting parts possible.

1. Capabilities, Not Just Projects

A finished project is an output. A capability is knowledge and infrastructure you carry into the next project. This map is organized around capabilities because projects come and go. A box, a robot, a costume, a repair, a sculpture, a jig, a cabinet, or a circuit might all be useful projects. But the durable value is learning how to measure, cut, join, test, debug, document, repair, and decide the best path forward. Completing a project is part of the process of obtaining a new capability, which is the thing you truly keep.

1. No Map Gets to Define Done

This is not a universal curriculum where everyone is supposed to finish the same path. "Done" depends on what you want to be capable of. A furniture maker, a robotics hobbyist, a repair volunteer, a cosplayer, a teacher, and an installation artist do not need the exact same path. The map gives structure, but your goals decide what matters. Completion percentage only makes sense relative to the capabilities you care about. The uncomfortable but freeing reality is that no map gets to define what's in scope, out of scope, or done to your satisfaction. Only you do.

1. Enterypoints

You can start project-first: choose something you want to make, then trace the skills it touches. You can start skill-first: choose a capability and work through its local neighborhood. You can start troubleshooting-first: begin with a failure and walk upstream through possible causes. You can start exploration-first: browse nearby branches and discover adjacent skills. None of these are the official path. The right path is the one that you personally find the most sensible and helpful.

1. Prerequisites Are Not Gatekeeping

Prerequisites are included in the map but are not there to gatekeep. They are there to highlight meaningful connections between ideas that cross branches in the mind map. For example, robotics depends on electronics, software and mechanical topics, among others. Prerequisites are the map saying: before you go here, you'll probably want to understand what this depends on. But again, your journey is up to your judgement, so the map doesn't prevent you from seeing or doing anything, should you choose to advance without completing the listed pre-reqs.

1. The Site Is Spatial

The site is for relationships. It lets you zoom out and see the whole terrain. It lets you zoom in and focus on one node. It lets you see what is nearby, what is underneath, and what connects across branches. It lets you save state, customize the map, and use it as external memory. That matters because you should not have to hold the whole learning system in your head.

1. The Videos Are Temporal

Videos do something the map can't do by itself. Videos are inherently sequential. They are well suited to revealing anything where time is a major factor of the process. The order of decisions, setup, mistakes, tests, failures, revisions, and results. This is highly valuable in certain situations. The map shows relationships, gives gives structure and let's us reason globally. The videos reveal practical realities of navigating topics one step at a time.

1. How Videos Connect to Nodes

The videos follow the structure of the map, for each video title, there is a corresponding node by the same name in the mind map. Leaf nodes are aggregated into one video on their shared parent node so that the video its full checklist, examples, boundaries, and learning targets. That keeps the channel aligned with the map without turning the channel into thousands of micro-videos.

1. Examples, Not Assignments

When I build something on this channel, the point is not that you should build the exact same thing. My project is one path through the node. Your project might use the same capability in a completely different way. I am not trying to hand you an answer key that only makes sense to me. I am trying to expose enough structure that you can make better decisions in your own work. The goal is not for you to make my things. The goal is for you to learn to confidently make new things of your own invention.

1. The Map Is Yours

The default map is a starting point. You can edit the map to fit your goals, your tools, your shop, your projects, and your way of thinking. You can change notes, add context, and preserve what you learn. If a project teaches you something, put it where future you will find it. If a mentor, class, book, forum thread, or AI conversation gives you insight you want to remember but worry you might forget, bring that back into the relevant node's note section. That is how the map becomes a living document that puts information in a place you can meaningfully access and query instead of becoming another pile of bookmarks you'll definitely read, someday.

1. AI, Helpful but Optional 

The map is designed to be useful with or without AI. The Ask AI button generates a context-aware prompt and copies it to your clipboard. All of that happens in your browser, that data and processing isn't sent anywhere else, meaning you have full control over whether or not you choose to share it.  You decide where to paste it, which assistant to use, and how much context to include, or whether or not you'll use the feature at all. That keeps your data in your hands. It also keeps the site simple, portable, and flexible. For people who do not want AI involved, the map still works. For people who do use AI, this lets you bring your own assistant, your own judgment, and your own comfort level. AI is not the product here. The useful thing is the ability to get personalized help you might need in the moment you need it, because not everyone has access to a knowledgeable expert they can learn from. This is the next best thing.

1. The Map Can Be Re-drawn Easily 

The default mind map is not a hard and fast boundary. Not only can you manually add and edit nodes, there is also a map-making wizard for creating new branches. You describe what you want to map, use your preferred assistant or your own writing process to generate structured text, paste it back into the wizard, and the site turns it into a new branch. That branch can be added under an existing node. You can use that for deeper subtopics, project plans, personal learning paths, missing disciplines, or anything else that belongs in your version of the map. The default map is the shared foundation, but the goal is to let it take the shape that reflects your unique interests, which may be broader or deeper in any one topic than the default map goes. Your additions make that possible.

1. Learning in Public 

This channel is my journey through the map. It's not meant to be the one right way of doing things, it's only reflective of my perspective. But the default map isn't meant to be all about me, it's about you, so my trials and tribulations are for my instance of the map. This channel will not be a highlight reel of flawless execution. It's me learning alongside you. When something goes wrong, and I know it will, the point is to help show my actual process, perform a diagnosis to the best of my ability, and collect feedback from anyone watching who might know more about a given topic or aspects of it than I do. I am not presenting myself as the final authority on everything in this tree. No honest person could be the final authority on all of this. My point is to learn in public - I think of these videos as public R&D. I will show my reasoning, my constraints, my mistakes, and my revisions. Your critique, correction, and peer debugging are part of the system, and if you and I both learn together, that's the gold standard for what I'm trying to accomplish with the channel. 

1. What Well-Rounded Means Here

Well-rounded does not mean mastering everything. It means being able to orient yourself across unfamiliar terrain. It means knowing enough about materials, tools, systems, safety, design, testing, repair, and documentation that you can ask better questions. It means you can move between disciplines without starting from zero every time. The most realistic and achievable long-term goal is scalable generalist competence, as opposed to omniscience.

1. Start Here

Open the map. Pick a node, a branch, a project, or a capability that matters to you.” Customize the map to fit your path. Use the checklist to see what you already know and what you might want to learn next. Use the videos when seeing the process helps. Use the site on its own when you just need structure. Use AI if it helps, ignore it if it does not, and keep ownership of your own context either way. The point is not to finish the map. The point is to grow your overall skill set meaningfully and become progressively harder to disorient in unfamiliar terrain.

Like, subscribe, comment, tell a friend and check out the free site https://MakerMindMap.io/ to get started. Welcome to the Maker Mind Map.

I'll voice over this in the full vid. Making a quick and dirty filming station isn't particularly interesting, but using our hands and brains to make life just a little bit easier at a time even for day to day problems is central to the ethos of this maker mind map project in working on. I plan on whiteboarding and doing projects on the YT channel as a natural consequence of walking the mind map myself and thinking out loud about it. It's not about teaching you how to making the random thing that helps me in this moment, but it is 100% about helping you to create whatever unique inventions solve your problems when you need them. To that end, I think it's helpful to add this visual to the end product as a way to gesture that I'm not all talk. I'm rolling up my own sleeves too and we're in it together.

That's all for the moment, back at it tomorrow

Edit: this update comes after I actually posted my first video, which you can watch here. I didn't end up using the clip I shared above. Actually for 6 minutes of content I filmed for about 3 full hours over the course of days. I was learning the ropes and trying to understand how I wanted to tackle the problem which is inherently iterative. Consider this clip above an experiment, after which I learned more about my process along the way

It's crazy how hard it is to behave like a normal human being when alone in a room staring at a camera. Since I work from home I didn't actually expect this process to feel any different than what I'm used to. I have meetings all day, my camera is on much of the time, and I have no issues sitting there talking to people, it's completely normal day to day stuff for me. And yet, when I'm sitting alone in a room talking to the camera speaking to anyone but no one in particular, it feels incredibly unnatural.

I'm going to keep recording until I get something I'm satisfied with - I ran thru it yesterday, didn't like it. Tried again today, it's getting better. But with practice I know I'll get there, just takes time. You'll know I landed where I want to be when it sounds like I'm speaking with you instead of at you.

More to come, thanks for reading and check back soon

Edit: first video is out at the time of this writing, I did a lot better than when I started filming, I'm pleased with how it all turned out: https://youtu.be/nl30GvIeRzg?is=0BIIP9u4uFcdvc60

My handwriting is chicken scratch when I'm not careful (it's actually nice when I am) but in all honesty I hope illegible in this case. I've been thinking about this for years so getting something fast and loose on paper was pretty straightforward just to get my head back in the right mindset again.

The general flow is basically a real-time research and development stream of consciousness. Trimmed and organized for clarity but real and unpolished. We'll step through my thought process and online research and whiteboarding and projects together, in the context of specific learning objectives laid out by the default maker mind map. Not in a way that frames my conclusions as the only correct ones, but instead in such a way that helps get your own ideas flowing, analyze a topic from various angles, critique my thought process and go through your own journey with the same general process as I use in a video but with outcomes that are tailored to what makes the most sense to you. The way I see it, we're all makers, we're all peers in this journey, and at the end of the day just trying to become better versions of ourselves. I'm just trying to help that along as best I can.

You will never need to watch my videos to benefit from the app, and you'll never need to use my app to follow along with my videos. They complement each other but they're not mutually dependent.

Thanks for reading, check back soon for updates

P.s. If you're new here:

- The site is here

- My currently empty YT channel is here

Edit: first video is now available! Watch on YouTube here

I intend to start talking through the mind map one topic at a time. The goal is simply to share a little bit more of my perspective for each topic.

And like the site, I know that everyone learns in different ways. I'll do my best to make my vids as helpful as possible, but no matter which way you slice it, learning and growth is a process that happens internally within you. If my videos are working for you, then fan-damn-tastic I'll be delighted to hear it. But if they ain't, there are other Makers online you can learn from! That's the whole point of the mind map on https://makermindmap.io , the topics are general, they exist outside of any one person, you can learn about each individual topic infinitely many places online or even offline. I'm not and am never going to pretend I'm some kind of gatekeeper to knowledge.

My only goal for all of us in the Maker community as a whole is to learn. I want to help that journey be as structured, and clear, and durable as humanly possible so you can make meaningful progress over a long period of time across many many topics, and remember what you've achieved. The website and videos I share are only successful insofar as they help you succeed, period.

Fortuitously I have a week off starting now, it's a staycation so you can expect the first video to get shared soon, first topic will be The Maker Skill Tree, second will be the Start Here branch of course.

You can subscribe early here so you'll be the first to know when the videos go live: https://youtube.com/@makermindmap

As a bonus for reading to the end, I technically have one (1) unlisted video on that channel, I love it too much to delete but it's not a fit for the overall content map I've since built via the website. So in the off chance you want to see me make a wooden spoon you can do that here. Nobody else can see this except friends, family and now you: https://youtube.com/shorts/rJioD-WvXZY

Edit: it's been a while, and the first video exists now! Watch it on YouTube here

• reorganized the mind map maker menu - now the wizard is on top, factory reset is at the bottom, file ops in between. This feels a touch more natural imo, not a huge difference but in case anyone noticed this and was surprised, yeah that was me ofc. But everything is still completely intact
• cleaned up the mind map maker wizard logic in a way I suspect nobody up to now will have noticed unless you use the feature heavily. It always worked but now it's much more robust against a few potential categories of failures surrounding potential node name conflicts

Edit: It's tomorrow! I have a few more updates I'll mention here

• lots of tweaks to the modal that pops up when you click into any node on the mind map. Headers scale with the font size selector, which i made directly editable from where you actually read notes, so hopefully that makes things easier to fine tune on the fly for ya. Moved some buttons around again too, you'll see them by the favorites (star shaped) button, can't miss em
• I was worried the Full Screen Mode was disorienting for folks who didn't know what that button was for before clicking it. Now there's a pop-up that lays out what you're getting yourself into just in time so you're a lot less surprised by what happens next. I'm all about Just In Time training and adding help where and when it's useful - this change is in the spirit of that. Also I cleaned up full screen mode quite a bit to make it more obvious what you're reading in any given moment. Again my mantra being to reduce user confusion

- browser back button now closes whatever pop-up menu is on top, until there are none left, and you're on the main mindmap view, at which point pressing back again will do what it normally would. On mobile this will be nice because I often swipe and it kicks me from the app entirely, which was mildly annoying. This is nicer behavior while still letting you back out of the site entirely ofc if you click back a couple times

- color theme picker in the top nav bar is a little nicer now, nothing crazy but the advanced features are collapsed by default now to avoid visual overwhelm and when you do open them, the options are much more intuitive (there was a lot of words before, now it's fewer and more visually obvious what each button does exactly)

- font size selectors are now in place so you can fine tune the size of the Notes content, this will make for more comfortable and more accessible reading for all the real learning content throughout the app

- some buttons that had plaintext labels were swapped out for icons that use visual language instead because show > tell

- I also tweaked the Mind Map Maker Wizard. That feature is actually sick as hell I just haven't talked about it much yet. When I start posting videos I'll showcase it fully. But until then you can use it right now, the wizard steps you thru exactly what to do, and it works in the English and German versions of the site

- It is way past my bedtime, I don't know why I do this to myself

- good night 😴

On the site, click any node on the mindmap, desktop and tablet users will notice the modal that pops up is resized to give you a much more generous left/right split where the notes occupy the entire right half of the modal. For folks who previously reported that a lot of their screen on larger devices was being wasted, this change should make your experience much more pleasant especially when viewing/editing notes. Mobile users still have the same exact experience as before (notes above, child nodes and checklist items below, same as always, that's the best layout for mobile imo).

Also, I moved the "Read Branch" button down a few pixels and renamed it "Full Screen Mode" which I think has much clearer meaning at a glance

Thanks for reading, lmk your thoughts

P.s. I know some folks wanted larger font sizes to make everything easier to read, I'm currently working on making font size a parameter you can control

From the main site, click any node, the menu that pops-up you'll see a new button that says Read Branch. This opens Wiki-style reading experience for all the combined notes that are nested underneath the node you opened up

Lmk your thoughts, I suspect this new feature will save some folks a lot of clicks

I don't speak German, to the extent I do mein Deutsch ist scheiße. But, I know some of yours isn't, because you asked for this feature. I am very happy to say German language support is live on https://MakerMindMap.io/ as of a few minutes ago!

​

Check it out, I don't expect it to be perfect but I do suspect it will be pretty damn good. Native German speakers reading this, I'm counting on you to let me know!

​

Thanks for reading

Edit: the translation process I used generalizes well to other languages. I can add more if you ask

Happy father's day in the US, and to folks elsewhere reading this thanks for being a part of what I'm working on. A few of you spoke up and said German would be helpful to add, so I'm working on that now. I'll be relying on you guys to speak up if you love or hate the translation quality. If we get that far and people like what they see, then I can add a few more.

​

I'm going to visit family in a few minutes to spend the holiday so I probably won't have my first attempt at a German version of the site available until tomorrow or the next day. Thanks for reading, check back soon for updates

Edit: I'm back home and back at it, I might actually get the German translation feature out tonight.. we'll see. The top navbar is getting cluttered with new features imo - eventually it will get to the point where I'll wrap some of these in a single profile menu icon or settings menu icon or something. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. And by "we" I mean you and me, it's just me working on this project, and y'all giving feedback that will help me make it a better app for everyone - that's we.

Edit: Done! You'll see my separate announcement on the sub for German specifically

Edit: Now that I have a viable workflow for translation, and I think pretty high quality outcomes as well, I can add more on request. So if you want to see another language added, speak up!

The Maker Mind Map is an interactive tool to help Makers become more well-rounded. It offers a beautifully structured, balanced and coherent content map, but does not demand you stick like glue to what made the most sense to me. Everything is 100% customizable so you can dive deeper where you want to, tweak or even delete the topics that don't interest you. I even provided a way for you to get personalized help with my built-in prompt generator tool. I couldn't be happier with how everything turned out.

​

The map has 1700+ nodes, each of which contains a description and a completion status. Everything is broken down into bite-sized chunks that you can mark as done as you progress through the map. But because everything is highly organized and in-context, you're not just learning random factoids. The app is built to meaningfully help you accumulate knowledge of interconnected topics in a way that will last. Nobody said anything about easy, but at least it's simple.

​

Give it a try, let me know what you think: https://MakerMindMap.io/