Dale Dougherty | Vox

Making it: The hands-on movement that impacts our economy, education and culture

2016-07-26T08:00:08-04:00

Omkar Govil, a 9-year old from San Jose, has developed the O Watch, a kit for kids to design and code their own 3-D printable smartwatch. | 3DPrint.com

Sasha Jaffarove started “Making” — the art of do-it-yourself creating, crafting, hacking or tinkering — as a fifth grader. Creatively combining her love of robotics and cave exploration helped her discover that she could effectively learn on her own while exploring her interests. Even as Sasha struggled to overcome anxiety about tests, she came to see herself as a competent learner in school through hands-on opportunities. By ninth grade, she had built Cave Mapper, a robot that uses lasers to plot the size of a cave.

Omkar Govil, a 9-year-old from San Jose, has developed the O Watch, a kit for kids to design and code their own 3-D printable smartwatches. To date, he has raised $18,000 on Kickstarter. Meanwhile, a father taught himself to use a 3-D printer to create a custom prosthetic hand for his son, made possible by an online community called E-nable that shared its knowledge, 3-D designs and expertise.

Makers like Sasha, Omar and that inventive dad will build our future, which is why the White House celebrated the National Week of Making last month; the European Union hosted its own Maker Week earlier this summer.

Making is on the rise, shaping a movement that impacts our economy, education and culture. This movement, ignited by enthusiasts who have a passion for creating, combines physical and digital skills to design and build using electronics, 3-D printers and other new tools. It encourages everyone to see themselves as producers, not just consumers. It fosters collaborative problem-solving and the sharing of creative work openly with others.

The most important aspect of the Makers movement is not technology — and learning about technology is not limited to coding. It is the wide range of people, young and old, who are developing their talents and discovering new ways to solve interesting, everyday problems. Not only does this allow them to express creative freedom, it teaches the foundational skills for the jobs of the future — jobs that will require more agility and creativity.

Making encourages everyone to see themselves as producers, not just consumers.

According to research, nothing activates a child’s brain like making and play. And, if given the opportunity, children will gravitate toward play that builds STEM skills. Research shows that given 15 minutes of free play, 4- and 5-year-olds will spend a third of this time engaged in spatial, mathematical and architectural activities. This type of play — especially with building blocks — helps children discover and develop key principles in math and geometry.

Schools and universities are also recognizing the value of making. Engaging kids in making results in a higher interest in STEM occupations, but making is also a gateway to exploration, problem solving and innovation. Last fall, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, opened a seven-story makers space called Think[box], free for students and the community to use as an open innovation lab.

As part of its ongoing efforts to spur interest in STEM careers, AT&T is supporting Maker Camp, a program that engages kids in hands-on learning both in person and online, with adult makers assisting. Campers learn to solder, make their own traffic lights and transform different energy sources into helpful IoT solutions or even wearable applications. General Electric is inviting makers to contribute project ideas that could shape the future of lighting. The Department of Energy wants to connect makers with National Labs to help address problems in areas such as clean energy.

Sasha’s making has continued to bring her success. She was part of a group (one of the youngest in history) that sent a science experiment to the International Space Station. This year, she entered the Santa Cruz County Science and Engineering Fair and won first place in the senior division and a medal from the Office of Naval Research.

Our country needs more maker spaces for students like Sasha, particularly in schools and libraries, to help them become the active learners, explorers and experimenters they need to be for the jobs of tomorrow. By engaging with science, technology and art in meaningful ways, they will become the creators, coders and makers we need to build our future.

Dale Dougherty is the founder and executive chairman of Maker Media, which launched Make: magazine in 2005, and Maker Faire, which held its first event in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. Dougherty forges strategic partnerships in support of maker education and global, cultural and economic initiatives. His vision and mission continue to be the guiding force for the family of brands. Reach him @dalepd.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Why We Invited ‘Clock Kid’ Ahmed Mohamed to Maker Faire

2019-03-06T06:02:41-05:00

No doubt last week’s arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed overwhelmed him and his family. I doubt that he expected to be detained in juvenile hall for bringing to school a homemade clock that a teacher thought looked like a bomb.

The story that resulted from it on social media rapidly generated a response that also must have been overwhelming to Ahmed and his family. Yet the reaction to Ahmed’s story was positive, a public recognition that Ahmed was a maker, a young inventor and science geek. “Every story like this previously read: “Bad student did bad thing,” wrote Jay Silver on the Sketching in Hardware mailing list. “This is, in the reaction, the best news on this subject ever.”

People reached out to me and thought it would be good to bring Ahmed to the upcoming Maker Faire in New York City. Numerous others — President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg — reached out to him and offered gifts, scholarships, internships and more.

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015

The maker subculture responded like antibodies identifying and attacking something it saw as an infection in the mainstream culture — an inability to understand and appreciate science and technology, particularly in education. The personal or institutional biases against people of color or members of certain religions are part of this story, but our schools and communities also need to be places that elevate science and understand the role of technology in making our world a better place.

This weekend, I was at the Maker Faire at the EMP Museum in Seattle. There were Tesla coils, a 3-D printed unicorn lit with LEDs, DIY bioscience experiments and a huge solar-powered tricycle that had been to Burning Man. I also met several young makers who are pursuing their own interests in science and technology.

Two young girls, Destiny and Muz, are members of the Big-Brained Superheroes Club, which is an after-school program at the Yeller Community Center in Seattle. They were demonstrating a game to learn binary coding. As part of the project, the girls learned to use and program Arduino, wire the circuitry and connect up a large four-digit display — which, I noted, looked like a clock.

Nearby was Dan, a 12 year old whose project was called Neurobot. He had me wear a headband with sensors that connected to a program he wrote that read neural data and controlled the operation of a robot. Nine-year-old Luca had developed a foot-warming sole insert for shoes. Luca wondered how people living in the Arctic would keep their feet warm. He had learned about a thermocouple, a sensor to monitor the heat so he could turn it on or off, and he hacked his own sneakers to show that he could use that technology to solve the problem.

At Maker Faire, these young makers are celebrated. In a different context, they might be misunderstood. Wires and battery in a shoe, anybody? A maker project that might win a wearables competition or a science fair could get you in trouble at the airport. I was once carrying homemade “play dough” in my carry-on for a science project demonstrating that with salt, the dough can act as a conductor of electricity, and with sugar, it can act as an insulator, and can be used to build electric circuits that light LEDs. I tried explaining this to the TSA person, but they called men who identified themselves as the “Bomb Defusing Unit.” If I were not white, I might have raised more suspicion. Instead, the officer looked at me quizzically and said: “What is it you do?” “I do science demonstrations,” was my short answer for the moment, just hoping to make my flight.

At Ahmed’s school, his engineering teacher understood his project, but his English teacher was suspicious. When he was questioned by school officials and police, he apparently didn’t respond. I can only wish that they had asked him different questions, such as the ones you might get at Maker Faire: How does it work? Did you use an Arduino or Raspberry Pi? And did you face any problems getting it to work? I can only wish that the education was more interdisciplinary so that English teachers as well as science teachers might appreciate the creative and technical talents of young makers like Ahmed.

I believe the maker movement is starting to transform our schools by engaging students in hands-on learning and encouraging all students to explore science, technology and the arts. On Friday, the day before Maker Faire opens in NYC, we are organizing an education forum. We’ve invited educators who are leading the way to bring making into schools and give more hands-on experiences to more students. These educators are trailblazers, and they are changing the culture of school so that it can become a place that truly understands and supports the full range of abilities of its students. We need more teachers and parents to start the conversation in their own communities and schools.

This weekend, we will welcome Ahmed Mohamed and his family to World Maker Faire in Queens, NY. I hope he will discover that there is a community that will understand him and appreciate his work. I hope he will feel right at home.

Dale Dougherty is the founder and executive chairman of Maker Media Inc., which launched Make: magazine in 2005, and Maker Faire, which held its first event in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. Dougherty forges strategic partnerships in support of maker education and global, cultural and economic initiatives. His vision and mission continue to be the guiding force for the family of brands. Reach him @dalepd.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.