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Creating a Makerspace
Insight & Inspiration for Creating a Makerspace in Your School
A growing trend is the construction of a separate makerspace where students can engage in hands-on, creative projects to support student design and creation.
Whether a section of the library, converted computer lab, or spare classroom, your makerspace can inspire creativity and innovation by giving it the right mix of equipment and technology while being flexible enough to adapt as project needs change.
See how School Specialty can help you serve current needs and allow for future growth.
OUTFITTING YOUR MAKERSPACE
The inside of an outfitted makerspace is a place of balance – open and flexible to promote ingenuity, yet ordered and structured to prevent chaos. Achieving this balance requires keeping technology, tools, and furnishings accessible and protected while giving students room to work and plan. And that begins with thinking through what might be inside that makerspace. This is just a sampling of appropriate products. Visit Shop our Products for our full assortment.
READY-MADE KITS
If you’re tiptoeing into the maker pool because of space or budget limitations, one way to get around the plethora of tools and supplies is to use ready-made kits. Many of these focus on electronics. Some allow students to build anything using dozens or hundreds of parts. Others are more specialized – they lead to the creation of a robot, drone, or computerized thingamabob. Kits may be self-contained, but they don’t constrain the imagination. Maker kits are not like building a model airplane, with just one outcome. Rather, they tap into the students’ creativity and provide the means to achieve all kinds of possible results.
READY-MADE KITS
If you’re tiptoeing into the maker pool because of space or budget limitations, one way to get around the plethora of tools and supplies is to use ready-made kits. Many of these focus on electronics. Some allow students to build anything using dozens or hundreds of parts. Others are more specialized – they lead to the creation of a robot, drone, or computerized thingamabob. Kits may be self-contained, but they don’t constrain the imagination. Maker kits are not like building a model airplane, with just one outcome. Rather, they tap into the students’ creativity and provide the means to achieve all kinds of possible results.
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THIS IS THE EDUCATIONAL MAKERSPACE
A place inside your school – a dedicated room, space in the library, or a corner in your classroom – where students create, invent, build, tinker and make. A makerspace can be anything you want it to be. Browse our gallery to provide inspiration for your makerspace.
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THE MOBILE MAKERSPACE
On the grand scale, it’s an outfitted RV or van. In most schools, it’s a cart (or fleet of carts). If you determine that your school is short on space, budget or both, a mobile makerspace is a good beginning. You can equip a cart with tools and supplies for all kinds of activities, then take to the hallways to conduct making sessions anywhere in the building. You could choose to theme the cart’s activity – prototyping with blocks and other materials, crafting with art supplies and textiles, experimenting with circuitry and electronics.
A Partner Every Step of the Way
Projects by Design® is our unique service from collaborative no-cost design through installation and beyond.
Using our exclusive 6-Essential Design Elements® process, our team of in-house designers and learning environment specialists can work with you to create comprehensive ecosystems that equip and inspire every student, from birth to Grade 12. We can provide training on the latest educational trends and methods, too.
We can be your single source for products, design, and project management resulting in one P.O. for your entire project.
We’ve done this for thousands of school building projects over the past two decades. And we’d love to do all of this for you.
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