Add reqs and up-and-running info to README

README.md

@@ -25,4 +25,31 @@ https://github.com/materialsproject/docs/issues/new) or suggest an
 edit to us via a Pull Request.
 
 Thanks,  
-Materials Project Team
+Materials Project Team
+
+# Contributing
+
+We use [MkDocs](https://www.mkdocs.org/), a static site generator for project documentation. We also use the
+[mkdocs-material](https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/) theme for styling.
+
+## Up and running
+
+Fork this repository and then clone it to your computer.
+
+Create a Python 3 environment for this project and activate it. Example flow using `conda`:
+```
+$ conda create -n mpdocs python=3
+$ conda activate mpdocs
+```
+Navigate to the folder of your cloned repository, and install dependencies:
+```
+(mpdocs)$ pip install -r requirements.txt
+```
+Start the development server:
+```
+(mpdocs)$ mkdocs serve
+```
+Open [http://127.0.0.1:8000/]( http://127.0.0.1:8000/) to preview the site and see changes as you make them.
+
+Create a new git branch to record any changes. When you push your branch to GitHub, you can then initiate a Pull
+Request against the `master` branch of this repo.

requirements.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+mkdocs==1.0.4
+mkdocs-material==3.2.0