Penny boats at the Maker’s Faire

The Maker movement along with Makerspace and Maker Faires are an important part of society that had been lost for the prior thirty years. The movement is all about innovation and a word I love “tinkering”. I feel the movement brings us back to a time when people worked on things from cars to sewing. These are things the current generation is missing out on, things our grandparents had to do as a part of life. That knowledge seemed to have skipped the next generation, but with the Maker movement I see those skills starting to reappear in today’s kids and through that their parents.

 

Recently, I was exposed to the Maker movement through a class at Michigan State University. As part of that class I got to see first about Makerspace and helped to host a Maker Faire. Myself and a partner that teaches preschool had to make a booth for the faire. We had to have a booth we felt would cover a large age range and draw kids and parents alike. Penny boats, at least that was the main idea but it had to be adapted to fit our age groups. I designed four models in tinkercad that we had printed on a 3d printer for the younger kids to use. They could wrap their aluminum foil around the four different shapes as a guide to see which design worked the best. We also made a one minute instructional video for people to watch on what the procedure was for the station. I have included a link to the video at the bottom of this blog. The older kids and adults were able to form their own design. Everyone was given multiple attempts to try different designs throughout the day. We kept a score board online through a Google document that was posted in different rooms throughout the faire as well as sent out on Twitter under #pennyboatwars. By turning the booth into a competition we drew the adults into the boat building. While people were building and testing their boats we would discuss water displacement and surface tension with them in small groups. Here is the Planning Document for those interested. The best part of the booth and the faire in general was through play and competition, the participants learned different ideas and theories about science and technology.

This movement could and should have a huge impact on how we teach our students. There is  value in students taking theories taught in class and applying them in the real world. We have put so much importance on “passing the test” that students today look at school as just another hoop to jump through. The class I teach is a lot of hands on, but even that can seem too task driven at times to a point where I lose the students interest. This event has made me think about pushing more building type class projects into my lessons, to help focus the students back to why automotive theories are so important to understand. If we as teachers can show them how those hoops can be applied in real world situations they may start to show more interest in what we have to say.

Two weeks ago I didn’t know what the Maker movement was or how big it had spread across the country. I see a huge value in this movement for society and in education. It reminds me of my grandfather, he could build or fix anything made of metal or wood. When I was a child and had a project for boy scouts or school I would always go to him for help. He just seemed to know what needed to be done, because of his father and life experience. The idea behind the maker movement is like me and my grandfather. You are now using a community to help and inspire children with projects and ideas through experiences like Makerspace and Makers Faires. I have always felt a strong connection with doing things yourself and the Maker movement is helping pass that along to the next generation.