FabLearn Conference 2019: New York City

The theme of the FabLearn Conference, which ran February 2019, was: “What role does Maker Education play in a world with growing social and environmental challenges?” The focus was on how the Maker movement can respond to, as well as help address, social and environmental challenges. Some aspects are reviewed below, opening the area for further investigation and expansion.

• The Maker culture remains strong and key to competitive edge in organisations, from high schools to tertiary institutions. The main reason behind this is the way makerspaces stimulate innovation and ideation across social dynamics. To support this, it was shown there has been an explosive expanse from less than 100 makerspaces in 2006, to over 1400 active makerspaces worldwide in 2018.
• There is substantial support for Makerspaces to address key skills, ranging from digital and technology skills to more hands-on skills such as carpentry and masonry. A key need voiced in discussions was how to start the support of skills such as Artificial Intelligence from an academic perspective.
• Within the United States, there continues to be investment in and development of Makerspaces across all education levels. In the light of this, flexible spaces were a highlighted topic to stimulate creativity and eliminate boundaries across disciplines.
• A common theme across the conference, was the success with which Makerspaces break cultural barriers and focus on creating and developing students irrespective of background or skill.
• Fun projects and guidelines were developed and are available publicly at https://fablearn.org/fellows/meaningful-making-book/

Two workshops were attended. The first was "Making a Science and Computing Escape Room" workshop, as a showcase to use technology and stimulate problem-solving. This was a fantastic session. Certain technologies were showcased to demonstrate how they can stimulate communication, even in pressing situations with linkages between technology and thinking under pressure. The second workshop was "Construct and Build Complex Objects with a Laser-Cutter". Laser cutting in the majority of Makerspaces is a standard service. This session showcased possibilities and advantages as well as disadvantages when compared to 3D printing for ideation, validation and prototyping.

The Conference made it clear that additional makerspaces should ideally be made available across campuses, with specific service offerings to support research projects and teaching and learning. Following on this, further services including laser cutting and wood work could be conducted.

Lazer cutting training

Escape room plan with MicroBit

Panel closing session