Hands on experience at Kwartzlab for budding Entrepreneurs

It was a cold, sunny day in January when 7 students and 2 educators from the University of Waterloo's GreenHouse program for Social Innovation, joined me at Kwartzlab for a hands on crash course in making. In groups of three, they designed and created their own "Doodle-bot" - a simple drawing robot - and then built it. Students were required to solder their own circuit, design and laser cut the parts needed to make the body of the robot, and then 3D print the holder for their battery. The final products were both creative and colorful, including an alien, a tiger, and a machine for mixing drinks. Well done students! Thank you for a fun and inspiring day at the lab!

What is a maker space? Why do we care?

In Part 1, I mentioned that there has been some recent interest by libraries in “maker spaces”, or if you prefer “hacker spaces”. That is, frankly, a big understatement. “Making”, has become such a buzz word it now comes attached to every library program and event that might even remotely relate, and people are getting sick of it. Sadly, only the smallest fraction of these programs get even close to capturing the true spirit of a maker space, so I will spend some time in explaining it here.

Why Change? Why Now?

Those who have been around libraries for a while understand that they are changing, and have been doing so quite rapidly for the past quarter century. In the last 2 years, there has also been a lot of excitement at library conferences about maker spaces, computer controlled fabricators like 3D printers, and the maker movement in general. While some may think this is just a lot of hype for a passing fad, the truth is that combining maker spaces with libraries offers a very practical and achievable solution that benefits communities and saves libraries from following in the footsteps of the dinosaurs and the dodo.