Resource:How to convince other student orgs to establish their home in your campus makerspace-article
Contents
Introduction
A makerspace is a place where students can gather to create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials.
Makerspaces are not about the tools; they’re about enabling making.
A makerspace can be anything from a repurposed bookcart filled with arts and crafts supplies to a table in a corner set out with LEGOs to a full blown fab lab with 3D printers, laser cutters, and handtools. No two school makerspaces are exactly alike, nor should they be. Makerspaces are as unique as the school cultures they represent. There is no such thing as one form of making being more valid or better than the other. Makers are artists, crafters, knitters, seamstresses, builders, programmers, engineers, hackers, painters, woodworkers, tinkerers, inventors, bakers , graphic designers and more
What do you do in a makerspace?
The simple answer is you make things. Things that you are curious about. Things that spring from your imagination. Things that inspire you and things that you admire. The informal, playful atmosphere allows learning to unfold, rather than conform to a rigid agenda. Making, rather than consuming is the focus. It is craft, engineering, technology and wonder-driven.
For me, it’s a buzzing hub of activity. It’s a space where kids come to:
Read
· We still love books and reading is the most important literacy. Every library needs a space for readers.
Learn
· We have research classes all the time. Our goal for next year is to integrate more making into core classes and to help different core subjects teach with the
“Invent to Learn” method of hands-on learning.
Make
· This type of space focuses on a method that understands kids don’t always realize they want to make stuff. Instead, the space is designed for “hanging out, messing around, and geeking out.” Students walk in to renew a book and notice new 3D printer and ask how it works and how they can use it. Then they come back to learn about 3D Modeling. This is one of the beautiful aspects of the library makerspace. It entices students to come back to the library. Plus, it gives EVERY student a reason to come to the library.
Study or Complete Assignments
· library is still a place where students come to study. About 20% of the students come in are here just to study! They love to spread out in our classroom areas and work collaboratively or even tutor one another. Another 30% of our drop-in students come to use computers and complete assignments.
Research
· 71% of our scheduled hours are designated to research. I’m happy to collaborate with English teachers and teach our students how to use our databases and research with books. While more and more students use databases, some of our students still prefer using books.
Place
The best plave for a makerplace is a library where u find ample resources as well as materials. The space really matters. Note that I said the space matters, not a space filled with laser cutters, 3-D printers and the latest, and greatest equipment. Those tools are wonderful when students have the skills and confidence to appreciate them. But the magic can start with PVC pipe, glue guns, string, soda bottles, soldering irons, and other household supplies. The most important quality of a makerspace is that it encourages creativity. This can be done with a space full of hand tools, materials, and finished projects. The culture in a space should support the idea that anything is possible.
= IMPORTANT QUALITY = The most important quality of a makerspace is that it encourages creativity. This can be done with a space full of hand tools, materials, and finished projects. The culture in a space should support the idea that anything is possible.
Goals
The main goal of my library makerspace is to support and promote literacy. Those literacies include traditional literacies like reading, writing, and research. But also include supporting students in digital literacy, coding literacy, and invention literacy.
The 9 main goals of successful makerspaces are:
- Use a wide range of idea creation techniques – such as brainstorming
- Create new and worthwhile ideas – both incremental and radical concepts
- Elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate their own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts
- Develop, implement, and communicate new ideas to others effectively
- Be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; incorporate group input and feedback into the work
- Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work and understand the real-world limits to adopting new ideas
- View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation are a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes
- Implement innovations
- Act on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the field in which the innovation will occur
Best Maker Space Supplies, Materials and Kits
1. Legos
2. Cubelets
3. Cardboard
4. LEDs
5. Batteries For Projects (CR2032)
6. Copper Foil Tape
7. littleBits
8. Chibitronics
9. Sphero
10. GoldieBlox
11. Squishy Circuits
12. Snap Circuits
13. Dot & Dash
14. Qubits
15. Lego Mindstorms
16. K’NEX
17. Minecraft
18. Scratch
19. RaspberryPi
'20. 'Arduino
21. ' VEX Robotic's
22. ' Engino Bran'd
23. Ozobot
24. Keva Structures
CONCLUSION:
Makerspaces provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering. Makerspaces are collaborative learning environments where people come together to share materials and learn new skills… makerspaces are not necessarily born out of a specific set of materials or spaces, but rather a mindset of community partnership, collaboration, and creation. It is a space where kids have the opportunity to make – a place where some tools, materials, and enough expertise can get them started. These places, called makerspaces, share some aspects of the shop class, home economics class, the art studio and science labs. In effect, a makerspace is a physical mash-up of different places that allows makers and projects to integrate these different kinds of skills
