Tag Archives: makers

2014 Conference on Design Principles and Practices

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At the Eighth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, Serveh Naghshbandi presented our initial findings from Maker Day 2013. A short video explaining the day  and our abstract below provides more information. Looking forward to your comments, Serveh, Susan and Deb.

Drawing from the Maker Movement and design thinking, we hosted Maker Day 2013 as a professional development activity for K-9 educators. The goal was to introduce educators to design thinking, making and tinkering. Maker Day was an opportunity for educators to experience fully the participatory design cycle by engaging in the iterative Stanford d.school’s design thinking model. We created a problem scenario and asked facilitators to guide the educators through the design process. The educators used the main scenario in collaboration with each other to gain empathy for the person they were designing. Then, they made one prototype per group, using the materials provided. Prototypes were the solutions to the problems that participants identified and defined. After engaging in the participatory design project, each group displayed their prototype and shared their design process and ideas on how this experience could integrate in their own professional practices.

 

Little bits

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This is way too cool …

littleBits is an opensource library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping, learning, and fun.

littleBits (spelled lower case L, upper case B, all one word) consists of tiny circuit-boards with specific functions engineered to snap together with magnets. No soldering, no wiring, no programming, just snap together for prototyping, learning and fun. Each bit has a specific function (light, sound, sensors, buttons, thresholds, pulse, motors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. Just as LEGO™ allows you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are small, simple, intuitive, blocks that make creating with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together.

Crave creativity? Make something! Light it, push it, turn it, twist it, bend it, buzz it, blink it, shake it…

With a growing number of available modules, littleBits aims to move electronics from late stages of the design process to its earliest ones, and from the hands of experts, to those of artists, makers, students and designers.

To see what you can make, check out community.

To come up with your own Bits, check out dreamBits.

For education, press and distributor inquiries, contact us.

http://littlebits.com/momastore

http://littlebits.com/

The Maker Movement

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http://www.hackeducation.com/2013/02/06/the-case-for-a-campus-makerspace/

The makerspace is something that has grown out of what’s called the Maker Movement, a loose affiliation of software and hardware hackers and hobbyists of all sorts.

The Maker Movement is a contemporary version, if you will, of the old punk ethos and its DIY culture — just with newer technology. Perhaps you remember the old illustration that said “here’s three chords, now form a band” — today, it’s “here’s a motherboard and some cables, now go build a computer.”

The makerspace is something that has grown out of what’s called the Maker Movement, a loose affiliation of software and hardware hackers and hobbyists of all sorts.

The Maker Movement is a contemporary version, if you will, of the old punk ethos and its DIY culture — just with newer technology. Perhaps you remember the old illustration that said “here’s three chords, now form a band” — today, it’s “here’s a motherboard and some cables, now go build a computer.”

Makerspaces are a newer version of the old Silicon Valley “home-brew computer club,” whose members included Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

But the makerspace takes a more public-facing, more community-oriented form than we’ve seen with individual DIY hobbyists or small hobby groups —  those who work in basements and garages and sewing rooms and living rooms and workshops.

The Maker Movement brings them out into the open, into the public to share and to learn together.

The Maker Movement is closely associated with Make Magazine — sometimes described as a 21st century Popular Mechanics — and the Maker Faires that the publication helps organize around the world. But there are many resources and traditions makers draw from and many places where makers gather.

The awesome project

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“Every month, Ocampo-Gooding and nine others in Ottawa pledge $100 of their own money. Then, they get together and cut a $1,000 cheque for a project they like.” What I like about this is that the definition of “awesome” is wide opemn, and that the money is given with no strings attached. “If you build a giant tricycle that shoots fire, that sounds awesome … and was actually a proposal in Portland,” he says, rhyming off some of his recent favourites. “If you write us saying you want to build animatronic giant teddy bears to put in daycares, that sounds awesome. If you want to host ginormous murder mystery party with hundreds of participants with pieces written for each one, we want to (help you) do that.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/21/pol-awesome-foundation-ottawa-giving.html?cmp=rss