Making way for 'makerspaces'

Schools and libraries around the valley are increasingly setting aside room for “makerspaces” where students can tinker, innovate, design, create and build.

The maker movement is basically a do-it-yourself philosophy in mix of traditional and modern areas such as arts and crafts, woodworking, metalworking, 3-D printing, robotics and electronics.

On Friday, some Whitefish Middle School students opted to spend 20 minutes of lunch recess in the library to make geodesic domes using just tape and newspaper.

With a printout of instructions, some students such as Whitefish sixth-graders Cecilia Bookmiller and Ava Metcalfe decide to roll with their creativity and try a different design. With two slender rolls of newspaper the girls taped together two big squares and two triangles.

“You have to try and be creative,” Bookmiller said.

This is the second year Whitefish Middle School librarian Dana Carmichael has overseen the makerspace. Carmichael provides project ideas to provide some structure as students explore and use their imagination. Sculptures made from old technology parts are on display in the library as an example.

“We have a take-apart station where students took apart a VCR, DVD player, reel-to-reel movie projector, an overhead projector and a CD player,” Carmichael said. “First, we look at how everything works. We take the cover off a DVD player and plug it in. Then they built sculptures.”

For many students, the opportunity to explore and play with different materials is limited with so much done on computers, smartphones and tablets.

FOR STILLWATER Christian School, the makerspace is modeled after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Fab Lab (“fab” short for fabrication). The Fab Lab focuses on computerized tools to make items typically found in mass production or technology-enabled like smart devices.

“The idea is that with the right equipment you can make almost anything,” said Stillwater maker-space teacher Ken Williamson, who’s also head of the school’s information technology.

Stillwater’s makerspace is housed in a Quonset hut behind the school. It’s a place where the classroom, industrial arts shop and a computer room intersect. There are computers, tables, a Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machine, laser cutter and engraver, several 3D printers and casting machine.

Much of the costly equipment has been purchased or received through contests and grants, and nearly all the computer software is free — a key philosophy of the maker movement.

On Wednesday, Williamson gave a tour of the classroom.

“It’s all project-based learning. Along the way they pick up electronics, they pick up design, they learn to make things with actual machines,” Williamson said.

He showed one project of a student’s face layered in high-density foam.

“We scanned his face in an Xbox Kinect scanner and then we took this into the CNC program,” Williamson said.

Williamson then picked up an aluminum wheel from a Power Wheels toy car that Stillwater junior Jordan Fear made in order to “soup it up.”

“The [original] plastic part couldn’t handle the stress,” Williamson said. “The student has to think about the part he’s going to create and figure everything out.”

Fear measured the original plastic part using digital calipers, input it into Computer Aided Design software, printed a mold and cast the part in metal using melted aluminum cans.

While the student “knocked it out of the park” on the first try, not every first attempt is a success. On a shelf were several iterations of a plastic part two other high school students worked on for the Power Wheels project.

“Motivation is often one of the biggest struggles because you don’t see it right away, but you have to fail and persevere until you see success,” Williamson said.

Fear is also in the process of designing an app and circuit board to power and control an LED light strip.

“If I’m doing something — that’s when I learn — even if it’s a goofy idea. You’re learning while your doing something,” Fear said.

Williamson said the makerspace is giving students freedom to come up with projects and learn along the way.

“To me this is [using] real-life skills. You walk away with, ‘I can actually make things. I can make a production line. I can make the machines that make the machines,” Williamson said.

Hilary Matheson can be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.