Makers — Kathy's Blog

Maker Faire is a world-wide phenomenon that has introduced people around the world to the idea that you can learn and grow through hands-on Maker activities. It’s run by the same company that published many of my Maker books for kids and other beginners and is now running Maker Camp, a wonderful resource for parents. And this year, with the global shutdown, the flagship event is going online!

For 24 hours on Saturday, May 23, you can watch talks by adults and kids who are making equipment to help us all stay safe from COVID-19, learn about projects of all kinds to make our lives better now and into the future, and see what people are doing to challenge themselves and provide fun and entertainment for others.

Here are the panels I’m moderating for this year’s Maker Faire and links to the videos. I hope you find them inspiring!

Reimagining Education in School and at Home

What will school look like in the new-normal world? How can we combine the best of traditional classroom, remote, and homeschool education? I talk with a panel of public, charter, library, and homeschooling maker-educators — Kristina Holzweiss, Bianca Forrester, Peter Rawitsch, and Rick Shertle — to discuss what models might work best for the diverse population of students, parents, and educators in the US and around the world.

Designing and Sewing Face Masks

While hospitals for the most part have finally found commercially-made supplies, there’s still high demand for re-usable, washable cloth face masks from office, retail, and services workers as well as the general public. I talk with mask creators Todd Thomas and Kelly Cheatle as we go through the challenges of designing an effective mask to make at home, from sourcing materials to breathability, and discuss how and why this low-tech solution to the problem of containing the coronavirus pandemic is so important to our country's recovery.

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What I love about the concept of Making — particularly for education — is that it highlights the overlap between arts & crafts, engineering, and science.

To explore this idea, a while back I made a little Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between engineering, art, and inventing.

In school, Making (using the capital because Make: magazine has kind of made that a thing) is most tied to engineering.

To me, it’s more about how engineering concepts can enrich the creation process. Think about Leonardo da Vinci — probably the poster boy for artists who are also scientists and inventors. He designed flying machines using his imagination, but based upon his knowledge of physics, anatomy, and materials.

Leonardo_Design_for_a_Flying_Machine,_c._1488.jpg

That’s why in my classes and books, I like to frame the activities I share with kids as “inventing.” I think it's a great way to get at engineering through art skills many of us already have. To my mind, engineering, inventing and art all use the same process:

Come up with new ideas and solutions to problems.
Test your ideas to see if they work.
Take note of what went right and keep working on what didn't. (Iterate!)
Record your results so you or others can repeat them.

That last part is very important (although, like other dabblers, I sometimes get caught up in the excitement of inventing and forget to take photos or keep notes). Adam Savage of Mythbusters has a famous quote about it: "The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down."

What’s more, engineers ask questions that can apply equally well to inventing and art (particularly when it comes to using new materials and techniques):

What is it made of?
What makes it behave the way it does?
What are its limitations?
How can it be improved?
How can it be standardized to make it easier to reproduce?

Kids can be encouraged to do that too. These students are building Solar WobbleBots, simple solar-powered spinning robots. (The instructions for this project appears in my book BOTS!, and there's an advanced version in Making Simple Robots that works in low light conditions thanks to a capacitor.)

As they put them together, they’re exploring materials such as recycled CDs, Slurpee cup lids, and solar panels ripped out of garden lights. They’re experimenting with designs to give their robots unique ways of moving. They’re using familiar tools and techniques (screwdrivers, tape, hot glue) and adding new ones (wire stripping). And they're using crafts materials to give their creations personality.

The concept doesn’t end there. I truly believe the process of Making can be used to enhance any academic subject. I’ll write more about that soon.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear what you think!

Find more advice and activities on my Homeschooling page!