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David Peins
Your story is not that unusual among guys our age – I’ll speak for myself ...
David Peins
Thanks for that comment! As I said in my post, it is hard to hold back when you ...
Be a mentor for a maker
David Peins
1/3/2013 5:01 PM EST
The maker movement is one of the greatest movements of all time and has the potential to fundamentally change life on planet earth. It has even caught the attention of the Whitehouse.
Maker Spaces are springing up in many places and kids are being given the opportunity to present what they have made at Maker Faires. Unlike many movements before it, the Maker movement is diverse and encompasses a wide variety of skills, technologies and incarnations. The movement is accepting of different approaches to creating solutions to problems and encourages creating things with a wide variety of materials, techniques and technologies. I remember seeing the Arduino LilyPad for the first time and thinking, ‘Now that’s different...’ In case you have not heard of this, it is an embedded controller designed to be sewn into clothing or gear to control LED displays but certainly many other functions come to mind. That was the first time I had hear the term 'Arduino' but I am hoping some of my readers can bring me up to speed on the genesis of Arduino and the Lilypad. I like the addition of a sewing machine to one maker center, which illustrates the diversity of methods used.
Embracing STEAM, (Science Technology Engineering ART and Mathematics) education and seeing the creative side of 'Making' is what makes the movement appealing for me. I have blogged about this in the past but I believe that the common factor between engineering and art is that both are creative endeavors. New York's MOMA museum is one of the most confusing places for me so I admit that I do not understand much of what is considered ‘Art.’ It is the creative process that is the art. I have always tried to accept my student’s ideas during my 30 years of teaching, even if I could not see the end result as having success. One memorable example was a robot with oval wheels that one of my students created. He is now an engineer. Whether or not that design could ever have been successfully implemented under different circumstances or if that experience had anything to do with that student's decision to pursue engineering I may never be know but he was clearly being creative and he stuck to his design decision.
The Maker movement has great potential for success but, like all great movements, people are the greatest asset and the most difficult to recruit and retain. Funding for start-ups is available through local, state and federal government grants and collaborations like the Maker Education Initiative. There are also private grants available through Make and others. My observations so far show that a 'Maker Centers seems to have 3-D printers, laser cutters and of course, Arduino controllers and soldering stations to make kits. What I believe should happen is that centers should be built around the skills and interests of the people who are going to run the center and the participants.
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Maker Spaces are springing up in many places and kids are being given the opportunity to present what they have made at Maker Faires. Unlike many movements before it, the Maker movement is diverse and encompasses a wide variety of skills, technologies and incarnations. The movement is accepting of different approaches to creating solutions to problems and encourages creating things with a wide variety of materials, techniques and technologies. I remember seeing the Arduino LilyPad for the first time and thinking, ‘Now that’s different...’ In case you have not heard of this, it is an embedded controller designed to be sewn into clothing or gear to control LED displays but certainly many other functions come to mind. That was the first time I had hear the term 'Arduino' but I am hoping some of my readers can bring me up to speed on the genesis of Arduino and the Lilypad. I like the addition of a sewing machine to one maker center, which illustrates the diversity of methods used.
Embracing STEAM, (Science Technology Engineering ART and Mathematics) education and seeing the creative side of 'Making' is what makes the movement appealing for me. I have blogged about this in the past but I believe that the common factor between engineering and art is that both are creative endeavors. New York's MOMA museum is one of the most confusing places for me so I admit that I do not understand much of what is considered ‘Art.’ It is the creative process that is the art. I have always tried to accept my student’s ideas during my 30 years of teaching, even if I could not see the end result as having success. One memorable example was a robot with oval wheels that one of my students created. He is now an engineer. Whether or not that design could ever have been successfully implemented under different circumstances or if that experience had anything to do with that student's decision to pursue engineering I may never be know but he was clearly being creative and he stuck to his design decision.
The Maker movement has great potential for success but, like all great movements, people are the greatest asset and the most difficult to recruit and retain. Funding for start-ups is available through local, state and federal government grants and collaborations like the Maker Education Initiative. There are also private grants available through Make and others. My observations so far show that a 'Maker Centers seems to have 3-D printers, laser cutters and of course, Arduino controllers and soldering stations to make kits. What I believe should happen is that centers should be built around the skills and interests of the people who are going to run the center and the participants.
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Robotics Developer
1/3/2013 5:41 PM EST
As a mentor for a robotics team I can say without any hesitation: "Letting the students explore design solutions and make mistakes is the best way for them to develop both solid interests and understanding in the engineering realm". Again, the caveats of safety must be followed. One effective way to allow for students to explore design options is to ask them to describe their design and then provide them with schedule driven deadlines. An example best illustrates this approach. Student design proposal for a new grip on an arm, ask them to build a prototype in a week to "test" the idea. They get to try out their own idea in a limited amount of time and can learn if the approach will / will not work.
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David Peins
1/4/2013 1:57 PM EST
Thanks for the comment. I agree with your suggestion to have students build prototypes. Even with very little machinery, students can cobble a prototype together. Most of the robotics projects that I have built started life as cardboard mockups. True, not very functional but for me, holding a 3-D example helps me see problems with the design and to develop the next step.
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DarkMatter
1/4/2013 11:24 AM EST
Having been one "before it was cool", I love the maker movement. It has real potential to revitalize innovation in the US and elsewhere. I also strongly support Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) initiatives. (My daughter is a physics major.) However, I am confused about adding an art component (A) to STEM and making it STEAM. I agree that art and engineering are both creative endeavors, but (with rare exceptions) they are separated by a very wide gulf, and that gulf is mathematics.
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David Peins
1/4/2013 2:17 PM EST
Thanks for the comment. I too was making things before the term STEM was around and I still love to create something out of nothing. Boomerangs were a fun way to teach physics to kids but required them to develop some skill in woodworking. It seems that with so many 'Shop' classes disappearing from secondary school curriculums that kids don't have as much opportunity to make things. I disagree however, with the idea that art does not require mathematics and science. I worked in an art foundry for a summer and there is a reasonable amount of science and technology required to successfully pour hot metal consistently. Besides art foundry, artists are including embedded controllers in their interactive designs and kinetic sculptures. More importantly though, I think that including art helps students to learn to use the right side of their brain to create solutions out of ‘Thin Air’. Some links for the STEAM movement - http://stemtosteam.org/
and http://www.edutopia.org/blog/stem-to-steam-strengthens-economy-john-maeda
Thanks again for your comments!
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pmoyle111
1/4/2013 5:19 PM EST
I built my 1st crystal set at the age of 9 in '63. I then built my first tube amp powered by a 67.5 volt battery at 10. By the time I was 12, I was building transmitters and receivers out of an old 1952 ARRL handbook. I had to do it all on my own because in those days people that knew anything about that stuff were far and few between at least to me.
I had very little money. so that only went for parts that I couldn't find out of donated not working tv's or old military surplus stuff that I canibalized.
It must be something else to grow up with internet help, cheap computers, fpga and uC dev systems. Even when I was getting started in C back in the very early '80's a C compiler or even assembler was very expensive and a basic IBM PC XT was 5 G's.
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David Peins
1/4/2013 10:07 PM EST
Your story is not that unusual among guys our age – I’ll speak for myself anyway, I am 59. I too scrounged around for parts, disassemble old surplus stuff and built things that worked. It does seem like things are so much easier now – look at the size of a Digikey catalog, Electronics Goldmine, MPJA, AllElectronics – the list goes on. You can get just about anything – and cheap - in a few days. And the availability of information on programming and hardware is at your fingertips on the web. I still have a copy of “The IC Hobbyist’s Handbook”, Thomas Powers in front of me but I couldn’t tell you the last time I opened it – I just point and click and in 30 seconds I have it in front of me to look at or print out with another click. Still, with all of that availability, kids don’t make things like we used to make things. They have no idea where to start, I think. They have no idea of the materials and processes that are out there or what is possible. I always recommend that students read the trade journals, go to HAM fests and talk to people who work with the kinds of things they are interested in. That is where you come in. That is why I am writing this blog. I am trying to help schools and libraries set up places where kids can come to learn how to make things again. The kids will come, spaces will open up – passionate, knowledgeable engineers are what we need now to help them. Thanks for commenting!
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EREBUS
1/4/2013 5:51 PM EST
Art and science have pushed technology growth for many millenia. I agree with the STEAM approach. You need to see a vision, understand its components, predict behavior and then blend in the best mix of new and old technology to make it work.
Mentoring is how most of us really went from newbies to doers. I agree that kids need to learn by doing. Failure teaches many more lessons than instant success. The key is to keep encouraging kids to learn and praise them for both success and failure (provided they learn from it).
Be a mentor, everyone wins.
Just my opinion.
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David Peins
1/4/2013 9:45 PM EST
Thanks for that comment! As I said in my post, it is hard to hold back when you know that the kids 'Are wrong' - they may be, but letting them make mistakes IS part of the process. As for including ‘Art’ in STEM, I fought and won to keep my drafting and design class in the Science and Engineering program. One of the parents, a chemist, gave the example of visualizing compounds as enough reason for learning to draw. Drawing, like building things, is a process for thinking things through - not necessarily an end product.
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