You can explain what a blockchain is perfectly well and still leave students as far from the subject as they were before. During a workshop on an entrepreneurship and startup programme, I wanted the theory to lead to something hands-on: everyone creates a wallet, receives an NFT, then checks for themselves, on-chain, what just happened.
What I did
A workshop delivered in two sessions, in 2024 and then in 2025. It used a collection I had created with friends, just for fun: Bonkey Business, a real derivative collection on Solana, listed on Magic Eden and since delisted. I designed the visuals in a Photoshop file bringing all the assets together. AMILZ, a developer, built the minting machine.
Supporting the session was a step-by-step procedure and an expandable glossary: hot wallet, NFT, mint, DevNet, Mint Authority, Update Authority, current owner and verified collection. Each concept points to a real address you can open in an explorer.
Before we begin
The workshop does not stand alone. It follows an introductory module, “Bitcoin in detail”, covering the foundations: the shared ledger, the blockchain trilemma, where the technology comes from and what it brings. Understanding that was the students’ first challenge.
Getting set up
Install Phantom, write down your seed phrase, find your address, switch to DevNet (Solana’s test network, where tokens have no value), receive a little SOL and confirm it on Solana FM. Nothing spectacular, but for someone who has never had a wallet, each step is a small climb. With clear instructions and a step-by-step approach, everyone got there.
The airdrop
I collected all the students’ addresses in an Excel file, then sent an NFT from the collection to each one. The address list became a check: each student could confirm their address was correct, find the NFT in their wallet, then open it in the explorer.
One wrong address, and the NFT never arrives. The logistics became an exercise in their own right.
The interesting part
The NFT was not the end of the exercise; it was the object to examine. Once it arrived, we could read what it carried: which address created it, which address could modify the collection, and who owned it now.
The glossary terms (Mint Authority, Update Authority, owner) stopped being definitions. They became lines everyone could read on their own token. And because the collection was real, with its visuals and its history, what they were examining was not a demo token.
The difficulty was not where I expected it. Understanding what an NFT is happens quickly once you have one. What takes patience is getting set up: the wallet, the address, switching networks. A clear procedure, broken into small steps, matters more than a good explanation.
Back then, the minting machine came from AMILZ. Today, I would build it myself, with AI as a coding partner. It would be a way to close the loop between creating the assets, building the minting tool and running the workshop.
Credits
Tom / Djiiz: learning design, art direction and collection assets.
AMILZ (@a_milz), now in Developer Relations at the Solana Foundation: development of the minting machine.
Bonkey Business collection: a collaborative project between friends.
Links
Collection on Magic Eden (delisted): magiceden.io/marketplace/solana_bonkey_business
Prerequisite module, Bitcoin in detail: (link coming soon)
Solana genesis block: explorer.solana.com/block/0
Mint Authority (devnet) : 2w5wcPx8…KVfnPQNPtkiY
Update Authority (devnet) : BoNKy7Fo…Pzs9oepibesE4w