Tyler Brubaker!

Tyler Brubaker joined the exclusive ranks of what has come to be known as our Robotiers last summer, and has since become a mainstay at 826michigan. His demeanor (read: really smart, really sassy, a little weird) was perfect for the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. You can find him there pretty much every Wednesday night. Tyler has also facilitated workshops, and helped us out with other stuff.

Two Main Things We Want to Cover about Tyler:

1. R2DStool. Yes, an object, but an overall characteristic as well. We’ll start here: in the store, we have a journal where Robotiers write down funny anecdotes, suggestions, ideas, customer interactions, etc. A number of store staffers were complaining about there not being anything to sit on behind the counter. This is the kind of guy Tyler is. He makes finding a stool for the store a Saturday project for him and his son. The mission: find stool, make stool look good, deliver stool to 826michigan. Mission accomplished when they brought in R2DStool, a stool painted to look like, you guessed it, R2D2.

R2DStool, as we mentioned, also stands for one of our favorite characteristics of Tyler. He just does stuff. Helpful stuff. AND, he needs almost no direction! Amazing. We once handed him a small pink end table and a button maker and said: “We need a button making station.” Poof! The next time we saw Tyler, he was carrying a button making robot. We wanted Buddy Central for all of our wind-ups. We handed Tyler a table, some dowels, and two ping pong nets. POOF! Buddy Central. Did we already say amazing? We did? Well there, we’ve said it again. Tyler pretty much always goes above and beyond, which makes him, you know, the best kind of person to be around.

2. Skrabbel for Cheaters. Yes, a fundraiser, but also a characteristic. Tyler and his son are a team for our Skrabbel for Cheaters Tournament, in which teams raise money for 826michigan to earn “cheats” for the Skrabbel tournament. And when we said it was also a characteristic, we didn’t mean that Tyler’s a cheater. Can “with gusto” be considered a characteristic? We think it can. Tyler Brubaker does everything with gusto. He has quickly risen to the top of the fundraising ranks in the tournament. When a challenge was issued on Thursday that the first team to raise $100 by Monday would win a prize, Tyler managed to collect $100 in, literally, a manner of minutes.

You can donate to his Skrabbel team here. Not that they need your help or anything. They’re doing just fine on their own.

So what we’re saying is: not only is Tyler a doer, he is a doer well. If he’s going to do something, he’s going to do it with gusto. This, his yellow-tinted glasses, his friendly nature, and the fact that there’s always a little bit of trouble floating somewhere next to his head (and we’re not talking about his haircut) are all reasons why Tyler is the volunteer of the month.

Thank you, Tyler, for everything you’ve done for us. We love you!