Maker culture and fab innovation

Introduction

This module, titled ‘Maker Culture and Fab Innovation’, begins with a general and theoretical introduction to the topic. Ιntending to engage participants in the Maker Movement for multilingualism and multiculturalism, it composes a cohesive introductory guide, encouraging them to actively participate in the movement. Finally, it explores a series of indicative actions ascribed in this framework, while serving multilingual and cultural diversity. 

This module aims to provide participants with a full picture of the state-of-the-art developments in the framework of crowd and social innovation with respect to language and cultural diversity. In particular, acknowledging  the potential dynamics of the Maker Culture and Fabric [Fab] Innovation in the fields of language diversity, cultural exchange and accommodation, the module intends to enhance this relationship and stimulate participants to design their own initiatives and actions in this line.

Stavros Samiotis, Sofia Papatsimpa, Katerina Zourou

On completion of this module participants will be able to:

  • understand and embrace the key-concepts of the Maker Culture: Making, Makerspace, Fab Innovation; 
  • find out  how the Maker Culture could serve multilingual and cultural diversity in society; 
  • actively participate in designing their own Makerspace;
  • establish their own Makerspace for multilingual and multicultural purposes.  

The target groups of this module are totally aligned with those of the BOLD project. In particular, 

  • student teachers in HEIs: this module will critically contribute to student teachers’ capacity in exploiting the Maker framework for designing educational environments that could offer their students an alternative way of engagement in a new language and culture;
  • associations from civil society: this module will offer members of civil society and +particularly Making practitioners a perspective of expanding the inclusiveness diomention in Makerspaces with respect to language and cultural diversity. 
  • Unit 1: It will encourage learners to understand the social function and value of the Maker Culture and Fab Lab Innovation movement. 
  • Unit 2: It provides  learners with a set of hands-on guidelines towards implementing the theoretical principles that have been showcased in the previous unit, thus constituting a practical tutorial for actively embracing the Maker Culture by becoming Makers.
  • Unit 3: It presents learners with indicative examples of already existing initiatives while it brings out the educational dimensions of Making and Makerspaces regarding language and culture diversity. 

4 hours (including videos)

The module’s main materials are based on a variety of resources:

  • Studies and reports issued by distinguished authors and international organisations on Maker Culture, Fab lab innovation, Repair Cafés
  • Explanatory videos and video-lectures
  • Materials provided by international organisations and HEIs through their official webpages

Unit 1 Introduction

Over the last years, an emerging and growing trend, promoting and supporting people to make their own prototype products or repair those that have been damaged, aims to facilitate them in their daily lives. Do-It-Yourself (i.e. DIY) is a very common and widespread term referring to products, blueprints and actions ascribed to this trend. Understanding it as a more general phenomenon, someone could conclude that making or repairing products stimulates people’s capacities for creation, development and innovation. In other words, people are stimulated to become active by creating, developing and innovating, instead of passively applying already existing solutions or just buying products from the market. 

Hence, this unit will focus on examining the Maker movement and the Fabric laboratory spaces by aiming to answer questions such as the following: 

  • What is Maker Culture? 
  • What are the fundamental principles of the Maker Culture movement? 
  • How can Maker Culture be applied in education?

Therefore, the learning outcome of this unit is for trainees to understand the social function and value of the Maker Culture and Fab lab innovation and to become able to get acquainted with the relevant framework and its technicalities.

1.1 Preliminaries

In this section there will be the basic definitions for the terms ‘Maker Culture’, ‘Fab lab’ and ‘Repair Cafés’ (section 1.1.1). Following, the social, technological and educational context which they ascribed on and emerged from will be introduced (section 1.1.2).

1.1.1 Basic Definitions

Maker culture / Maker movement

  • Maker Culture / Maker Movement 
In this module the terms Maker Culture and Maker movement will be used interchangeably, both referring to the definition that will be proposed. In particular, there are multiple definitions for the terms, ranging according to the various parameters and factors that each scholar takes into account to reach a definition. However, the most simple and comprehensive definition that will be adopted in the context of this module is the one proposed by Halverson & Sheridan (2014), according to which the term ‘Maker movement’ refers to “to the growing number of people who are engaged in the creative production of artifacts in their daily lives and who find physical and digital forums to share their processes and products with others”.1
A maker/hackerspace in Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CC BY-SA 4.0 Dreamyshade
1 Our choice to use the terms ‘Maker Culture’ and ‘Maker Movement’, except for being a widespread practice in the relevant literature, derives from the fact that the definition given by Halverson & Sheridan (2014) covers both. In particular, the term ‘movement’ refers to “the growing number of people who are engaged in”, while the term ‘culture’ refers to “the creative production of artifacts in their daily lives and [people] find physical and digital forums to share their processes and products with others”.

According to them, this definition has the following three dimensions:

The three dimensions of the Maker Movement
  • Making: defined as the “set of activities that can be designed with a variety of […] goals in mind”. 
  • Makerspaces: defined as “the communities of practice constructed in a physical place set aside for a group of people to use as a core part of their practice”.
  • Makers: defined as “the identities of participation that people take” due to their engagement in Maker Culture activities or due to being members of the Maker movement.

To further enhance your knowledge in Maker Culture, you can watch this youtube video, where scholars endeavor to define Maker Culture while sharing their personal encounters with it.

Fabricate Laboratories (Fab labs)

The Fab lab logo, Public Domain

According to the Ewa Orzeszko (2021), Fab labs are “physical spaces, but also virtual communities fostering the creative use of new technologies. […] However, around the world, there is a variety of spaces which operate with similar functions, namely makerspaces, hackerspaces, and medialabs. […] [They] are workshops that offer access to space, tools, materials and knowledge for those who want to implement their ideas and develop their passions. [They also] give access to the latest technologies (e.g. 3D printers, laser plotters, CNC milling machines, electronic devices, computers), but their main idea is what we can broadly define as DIY, improving creative skills and stimulating creativity.”

The Fab Lab Butterfly
Fab Lab in Abyssinia (Armenia), CC BY-SA 4.0 Sara Kostandyan

[Additionally, you can watch this and this (in French with English subtitles) explanatory video on Fab labs.]

Finally, in the broader sense of community-driven making, it is worth mentioning the Repair Cafés action, which are defined as follows:

Repair Cafés:

According to the definition provided by the ‘Repair Together’ action, “a Repair Café is a meeting between citizens who are determined not to throw away their objects anymore without trying to repair them”. In most of the cases, citizens bring along goods such as electronic devices, textiles or bicycles, with media technologies being among the most usual ones.

Repair Café, CC-BY 3.0

The impact of Repair Cafés is estimated to be: 

  • environmental: due to the avoidance of significant amounts of waste. 
  • social: since Repair Cafés become places of social cohesion. 
  • formative: since knowledge sharing may lead to the development of new skills and competences.
  • economic: since Repair Cafés apply and expand the principles of circular economy.
The benefits of Repair Cafes

[Additionally, you can follow this and this links on Repair Cafés, while you can also see this and this video.]

1.1.2 The context

The Concentric circles of contexts

The origins

Delving into history, someone could identify the roots of the Maker Movement back in the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture of the 1960s and 1970s, the hacker culture of the 1980s and 1990s, and the open-source software movement emerged at the beginning of the 2000s. Yet the official start of the movement was in the mid-2000s, when the MAKE magazine was launched by Dale Dougherty. The magazine focuses on DIY projects, technology, and creativity, inspiring people to explore various fields such as electronics, robotics, woodworking, and crafting. However, the catalyst event was the organization of the Maker Faire event, a year after the MAKE magazine was circulated, namely in 2006. These events showcased makers, artists, inventors, and tinkerers, providing a platform for them to share their projects with a wider audience. 

On the other hand, The Fab lab concept emerged from the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the early 2000s. The history of Fab labs can be traced back to the visionary work of Professor Neil Gershenfeld, who is considered the founder of the Fab lab movement. The goal of this initiative was to democratize access to advanced manufacturing tools and empower people to turn their ideas into physical objects. Equipped with various digital fabrication tools, Fab labs became a place where students, researchers, and community members could experiment with creating prototypes and developing innovative projects. Today, the operation of the Fab labs network is supervised and regulated by the Fab lab foundation. 

Finally, Repair Cafés are dated back in 2009, when a dutch journalist, Martine Postma, credited with starting the first Repair Café in Amsterdam. The idea behind Repair Cafés was to create community spaces where people could bring their broken or damaged items, such as household appliances, electronics, clothing, furniture, and more, to be repaired rather than discarded. The primary idea behind Repair Cafés was to promote sustainability, reduce waste, and encourage a shift away from the throwaway culture that often prevails in modern societies. Today, the operation of the Repair Cafés network is supervised and regulated by the Repair Café foundation. 

The technological context

The rise of digital fabrication technologies, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and other computer-controlled tools, played a significant role in the emergence of both Fab lab movement and Maker Culture. These technologies became more accessible and affordable, empowering people to prototype and fabricate objects that were previously difficult or expensive to create (see indicatively: Hatch, 2013; Gershenfeld, 2007, 2012).

The policy context

Over the early 2000s, the Open principles, especially regarding software and hardware, began to expand to the society, beyond close communities of hackers and digital developers. The Maker movement emphasized sharing knowledge, designs, and projects freely with the community, encouraging collaboration and innovation, while the Fab lab movement adopted these open-source principles, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and cooperation by providing interested individuals with the resources to do so. Both movements emerged as a response to the growing demand for democratizing access to technology. Both aimed to give people the tools and knowledge to create, tinker, and innovate without the need for specialized expertise or expensive resources (Hatch, 2013; Gershenfeld, 2007, 2012).

The societal context

The Fab Lab and the Maker Movement emphasize community-driven innovation. They provide spaces for people from diverse backgrounds to come together, learn, collaborate, and transform their ideas into tangible projects. These environments foster creativity, problem-solving, and peer learning. Moreover, by providing tools and resources for individuals and communities to solve local challenges, they urge people to address environmental issues, and promote sustainability across their communities and society (Hatch, 2013; Gershenfeld, 2007; Wenger et al., 2002).

The educational context

The Fab Lab and Maker Movement, by promoting experiential, hands-on learning, challenge the conventional paradigm of education merely focusing on theoretical knowledge and standardized testing. Instead, they encourage learning by doing, enabling individuals to gain practical skills and apply knowledge to real-world situations. The applications of Fab Lab and Maker Culture methodologies in education could broaden the perspective and dynamics of learning by allowing participants to engage in learning to the degree they will, to freely experiment with what they are interested in or what they like on the basis of a self determination framework into a (learning) community. However, their potential dynamics still remain unexplored and unknown, pending for further applications and research to be conducted (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Hatch, 2013; Schön et al., 2014; Wenger et al., 2002).

1.2 The foundations

This section introduces the basic principles of Maker Culture and Fab Labs.

1.2.1 The basic principles of the Maker movement

In line with the definitions provided above for the Maker Culture and Fab Labs, Chicho (2020), following Schön et al. (2014), points out that the fundamental principle behind those movements is for them “to develop and produce new things that are either digital or physical utilizing new techniques or tools such as 3D printers in open spaces, workshops or labs”. In a more detail, Hatch (2013) in his book titled “The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers” formulated a set of principles defining the axes upon which the Maker Culture is built on. These are the following [follow the link to read the original text: here]:

The Maker movement Manifesto
  • MAKE: “Making is fundamental to what it means to be human. We must make, create, and express ourselves to feel whole. […].”
  • SHARE: “Sharing what you have made and what you know about making with others is the method by which a maker’s feeling of wholeness is achieved. […].”
  • GIVE: “[…] Giving [an artifact you made to someone else is like giving someone a small piece of yourself.”
  • LEARN: “You must learn to make. You must always seek to learn more about your making. You may become a journeyman or master craftsman, but you will still learn, want to learn, and push yourself to learn new techniques, materials, and processes. Building a lifelong learning path ensures a rich and rewarding making life and, importantly, enables one to share.” 
  • TOOL UP: “You must have access to the right tools for the project at hand. Invest in and develop local access to the tools you need to do the making you want to do. […].” 
  • PLAY: “Be playful with what you are making, and you will be surprised, excited, and proud of what you discover.”
  • PARTICIPATE: “Join the Maker Movement and reach out to those around you who are discovering the joy of making. Hold seminars, parties, events, maker days, fairs, expos, classes, and dinners with and for the other makers in your community.”
  • SUPPORT: “[A movement such that] requires emotional, intellectual, financial, political, and institutional support. The best hope for improving the world is us, and we are responsible for making a better future.”
  • CHANGE: “Embrace the change that will naturally occur as you go through your maker journey.[…]”

1.2.2 The Fab labs’ Charter

It is important to underline that Fab Labs, in essence, constitute a distinctive category of Makerspaces. Their operation is supported by the Fab Lab Foundation, whose purpose is to facilitate “the growth of the Fab lab international network as well as the development of regional capability-building organizations”. According to the principles that have been set by the foundation, for a makerspace to be officially characterized as a Fab Lab, it must comply with the Fab Lab Charter, which includes a set of principles, serving the minimum basis of all Fab Labs’ operation. In particular, the principles2 are the following:  What is a Fab Lab? Fab Labs are a global network of local labs, enabling invention by providing access to tools for digital fabrication.  What’s in a Fab Lab? Fab Labs share an evolving inventory of core capabilities to make (almost) anything, allowing people and projects to be shared.  What does the Fab Lab network provide? Operational, educational, technical, financial, and logistical assistance beyond what’s available within one lab. Who can use a Fab Lab? Fab Labs are available as a community resource, offering open access for individuals as well as scheduled access for programs.  What are your responsibilities?
  • safety: not hurting people  or causing damage to machine items
  • operations: assisting with cleaning, maintaining, and improving the lab
  • knowledge: contributing to documentation and instruction
Who owns Fab Lab inventions? Designs and processes developed in fab labs can be protected and sold however an inventor chooses, but should remain available for individuals to use and learn from.  The social value of Maker Spaces and Fab Labs Makerspaces such as Fab Labs and Repair Cafes offer added value by promoting sustainability, fostering citizen participation and collectivism, and encouraging innovation, ultimately contributing to the creation of more resilient and connected community members.
  • Community Engagement: These spaces foster community engagement and civic participation by providing opportunities for people to meet, share knowledge, and collaborate on a common project or idea. Fab labs offer a supportive environment for makers to exchange ideas, learn from each other and develop innovative solutions to local challenges. Similarly, repair cafes create social connections and empower individuals to take an active role in repairing their belongings, fostering a sense of belonging in their community.
  • Sustainability: Fab labs and repair cafes encourage sustainable practices by promoting repair, reuse, and recycling. Instead of discarding broken items, individuals can repair them at repair cafes, extending their lifespan and reducing waste. 
  • Innovation: Fab labs serve as innovation spaces, where individuals can experiment with new technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Repair cafes also promote innovation by encouraging creative problem-solving and DIY (do-it-yourself) approaches to repairing items, inspiring individuals to think outside the box and find novel solutions to everyday problems.
2 All principles are stated verbatim.

Unit 2: Become a Maker

Following the direction of the previous unit, this one provides participants with a set of hands-on guidelines towards implementing the theoretical principles presented in the previous unit. Ιt serves as a hands-on guide for embracing Maker Culture, whether by actively participating as a Maker or initiating one’s own Makerspace.  

Hence, this unit deals with the following questions:

  • How to become a Maker? 
  • How to start a Makerspace?
The MAKE magazine logo, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

2.1 Become a Maker

This section is a practical guideline for someone who wants to join the Maker movement by becoming a Maker. The first part (section 2.1.1) refers to the Makers’ mindset, directly deriving from the Maker Culture framework introduced in Unit 1, while the second (section 2.1.2) is a five-step guideline to becoming a Maker.

2.1.1 Embrace the Maker Mindset

In unit 1, there were showcased the fundamental principles that define the Maker Culture. Thus, those principles are transformed into the following instructions (Gould, n.d.)3:  
  • Be open: “experimenting and sharing [your] results amongst friends and associates and not keeping the knowledge locked up within themselves”. 
  • Embrace imperfection: “Makers are more interested in learning and experimenting rather than perfection and that’s OK. They try (and fail) often to perfect their projects and to make lots of small bets which eventually lead them to the big Idea.”
  • Love the process: “Focus on trusting the process rather than outcome is essential to the Maker mentality. Creativity and making is an ongoing rhythm, a lifestyle which is more a way of being than a hobby or isolated event. Makers solve problems, test hypotheses and try to make crazy ideas real.”
  • Build community: “Community is essential to the Maker Movement’s success as a way to meet “the others,” learn, teach and share knowledge – and from a sense of belonging and ownership of the often crowd-powered projects. Maker communities can be physical, like hackerspaces and makerspaces, temporal – such as meetups and mini-faires or on digital platforms like forums, content sites or DIY hubs such as Instructables or YouTube.”
[Additionally to this short introduction to the Maker Mindset, you can also watch this video from the University of Michigan on the same topic.]
3 Gould’s instructions are presented here verbatim.

2.1.2 Follow the basic steps

In order for someone to become an actual Maker, there are five simple steps that according to Silvestre (n.d.), (s)he should follow. Hence, they are the following: 
  1. Stop consuming, start making: “You need to embrace a new reality: you can make things instead of consuming them. […] Choose consumption that aligns with things you are trying to learn. Pick books and courses that teach you the knowledge you are missing to help you build or develop your creations.” 
  2. Find your product: “What’s the one thing you never stop talking about? How can you add value to the world with it? […] Find productivity experiments you always wanted to try and share with the world the results you got, what you learned and key takeaways. […] Don’t worry about revenue, users, growth rates or acquisition channels for now. Your only goal is to continuously make and iterate your product.”
  3. Schedule Maker Time: “This is the time to be creative, to build something new. You don’t want to strangle your innovation because you are running low on funds and need to “sell out”. […] Protect this hour […]: this is your Maker time and it’s non-negotiable.”
  4. Launch: “Quietly launch your product and keep going at it. […] Letting go of your fears consistently on a weekly basis is the formula to become a Maker.” 
  5. Leverage Platforms: “After iterating your product with the initial feedback, move on to platforms. The goal is to discover the medium that most of your target market uses.”
[Additionally, you can watch this video with a Maker, narrating his personal experience on becoming a Maker and giving practical suggestions].  In this part, it is important to mention that Makerspaces come in various types and different groups of people and communities are involved, having different aspirations. While financial considerations are indeed important in establishing and maintaining makerspaces, there are other categorizations based on their focus, resources, and target audience. Here are some common types:
  1. Community Makerspaces:4 These are open to the public and often run by community organizations or non-profit groups. They provide access to resources for people of all ages and backgrounds.
  2. Educational Makerspaces: 5 Found in schools, colleges, and universities, these spaces are focused on integrating making into formal education by providing students with hands-on learning experiences and opportunities to apply STEAM principles.
  3. Tech Makerspaces:6 These makerspaces are centered around technology-related activities such as 3D printing, electronics, robotics, coding, and digital fabrication
  4. Virtual Makerspaces:7 With advancements in technology, virtual makerspaces have emerged, allowing people to collaborate and create online. These platforms provide virtual tools, software, and communities for digital fabrication, coding, design, and collaboration.
  5. Mobile Makerspaces:8 These are makerspaces often housed in trailers or buses, that bring resources and activities to different communities, schools, and events. They are especially useful for reaching underprivileged or remote areas.

4 https://community.make.com/
5 https://makered.org/
6 https://makered.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Makerspace-Playbook-Feb-2013.pdf
7 https://www.tinkercad.com/
8 https://www.makerspaces.com/resources-for-starting-and-running-a-mobile-makerspace/

2.2 Start your own Makerspace

As mentioned in Unit 1, Makerspaces are “communities of practice” organized around a particular axis, such as a school or a local community. The guideline introduced in this section is the one proposed by the Resilient Educator Organization (2018). The design of this guideline not only fits with the definition of the Makerspace that is adopted in this module, but also fits with the overall objectives of the BOLD project, since its primary intention is to create a Maker community serving as a platform of inclusive learning by peers and collaborative thinking

The guideline consists of five simple steps, which are the following: 

  1. Study up and network: “Start by picking up a few reading materials you can reference all year […] and connecting to the myriad of like-minded educators across the country, sharing their ideas and advice.”
  2. Bring the outside world in: “Ask your community for help. Makerspaces can use everything from cardboard boxes to office supplies to popsicle sticks. […] First, come up with a list of projects and necessary supplies. Then, deliver the list to local businesses, tack it to the community board in your local cafe, and post it on social media. Think about parents too—what do they often throw away that you could use? Beyond supplies, take advantage of the expertise and talents of your neighbors as well. Bringing in members of the community for maker demos and class projects bridges the gap between classroom learning and the outside world”
  3. Turn any space into a makerspace and give time to explore: “Local and school-based libraries […] are swiftly becoming makerspaces—a natural extension, as libraries have always been a central location for community learning.”
  4. Start a design challenge practice: “Once you’ve got a makerspace assembled, commit to making creativity and innovation routine in your school by hosting regular design challenges. Whether weekly, monthly, or once a semester, design challenge events can quickly build maker momentum in your […] community. The goal is to get […] [participants] engaged in design thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving.” 
  5. Get creative with the curriculum: If you are a teacher, “consider ways to incorporate maker projects into your everyday unit and lesson plans, as well as long-term projects. Embedding maker culture into curriculum learning creates a long-term practice with measurable outcomes.” 

2.3 The Maker jargon

The final section of this unit, introduces the most commonly used terms in Maker culture and Fab labs, a necessary component for someone to join the Maker movement. The inventory includes 38 terms, which by no means are not exhaustive of all the existing used terms. The terminological glossary presented here is originally attributed to TeachThought organization (n.d.):

  1. 3D Printing: The printing of objects rather than paper. (One day this will almost certainly include human organs, so there’s that.)
  1. Alpha: A very early build, or model; ‘alpha’ products can come in a variety of states of production, from completely unfinished to nearly ready for beta testing
  1. Arduino: “An open-source electronic prototyping platform.” (see arduino.cc)
  1. Beta: A build that lacks polish and refinement, but is mostly functional and ready for more widespread testing
  1. Blacksmiths: A metalsmith that crafts metal objects with elemental tools (e.g., steel, water, hammers); the O.G.s of makers
  1. Bug: A flaw in design or execution, often referring to an error in computer code
  1. Coding: The collection of alphanumeric characters in certain computing languages to produce software, including apps, games, and web design
  1. Crafting: The combination of two or more ingredients to make something new; see everything from cooking to Minecraft
  1. CAD: Computer-Aided Design
  1. CNC: A machine used to precisely cut and shape physical materials, including metal and wood

A type of CNC machine

  1. DIY: Do-It-Yourself
  1. DIT/DIWO:  Do-It-Together/Do-It-With-Others; collaborate
  1. Design: Strategic decisions for a specific purpose–project-based learning
  1. Electronics: The design, study of, and experimentation with hardware (of any size) energized by electricity (of any amount)
  1. Hack: To strategically probe, analyze, break, or hi-jack; a revision of existing software or hardware to make it perform in a way other than it was designed
  1. Hackerspace: A digital or physical space where one or more hackers adjust existing designs for a variety of purposes
  1. Interface: How/where a user interacts with software or hardware
  1. Invent: To create something that didn’t exist before
  1. Iterate: To update a design—e.g., with new features, functions, elegance, etc.
  1. Flow: A mental state characterized by autonomy, creativity, and full cognitive immersion
  1. Kit: A pre-designed set of materials, often ‘turn-key,’ ready to assemble
  1. Laser Scanner: Laser hardware that can create a 3D digital representation of a physical environment; also called a 3D scanner
  1. MacGyver: A hero 
  1. Make: To move from design to product; to build, craft, conjure, code, or otherwise manifest
  1. Makerspace: A garage space, classroom corner, workbench, design lab, or other area where the actual physical construction of designs occur
  1. Materials: The diverse and working ingredients of making–paper, cardboard, blocks, wires, circuit boards, gears, batteries, USB, paint, wood, rubber, etc.
  1. Metal and Wood Crafting: The creation of traditionally crafted items, including cabinets, gates, lamps, and other often functional products
  1. Model: The use of an existing ‘design’ for new design ideas
  1. Open: A philosophy of sharing (ideas, resources, and approaches) and transparency (designs, failures, and successes)
  1. Open Source: The communal building and iteration of existing software or hardware; the formal practice of sharing design
  1. Play: An underlying tone of ‘making,’ and a critical dynamic of the Maker Movement
  1. Prototype: The first example of a design; an early model built for testing purposes
  1. Reverse Engineering: The discovery of design thinking and function through the analysis—and sometimes deconstruction—of existing functioning models; unbuilding stuff to see how it’s made
  1. Robotics: The use of mechanized and humanoid
  1. Smith: A maker usually specializing in metal
  1. Tinker: The playful and curious interaction between a maker and their ‘things’
  1. Turn-Key: A kit ready complete with everything necessary to function.

38. Rapid Prototyping: The approach of design through refinement; creating an often crude alpha model for the purpose of testing; this approach is characterized by a fast development cycle and long-term iteration, rather than extended development leading towards a production-ready product.

Unit 3: Multilingual and multicultural Makerspaces for education

After introducing the Maker movement and Fab labs, this unit aims to highlight the educational aspects of Makerspaces regarding language learning and culture engagement. After a theoretical introduction on the topic, it presents participants with particular examples of already existing initiatives, providing an overview of the cultural and language diversity in Makerspaces and Fab labs. 

Hence, this unit deals with the following questions: 

  • How can Making contribute to a linguistically and culturally diverse society?
  • Which are the already existing initiatives interrelating maker-culture with language learning and cultural contact?

In this unit, each of the following sections is focused on a particular initiative or group of initiatives.

3.1 Diversity in Maker movement, education and social change

As Voigt et al. (2017) point out, the Maker Movement has a strong political ambition, willing to contribute to making a fairer world. In this context, diversity emerges as a critical factor of fairness comprising parameters such as cultural and language diversity, gender and age equality, social inclusiveness and many others. Particularly, advocates of this framework support that making could serve as the basis of collaboration, fostering a sense of community where people of various backgrounds and with varied interests and expertises come together to share knowledge and collaboratively work on projects  (Dougherty, 2012; Hatch, 2013). Moreover, it has been proposed that this approach of social collaboration and inclusion would better fit small communities (Wolf-Powers et al., 2017), thus transforming small-scale communities and local economies in a bottom-up approach. Therefore, following this line of reasoning, Vinodrai et al. (2021) characterize makerspaces “as key local intermediaries or institutions that assume new importance as potential hubs of community economic transformation and inclusive innovation, far eclipsing their humble origins as social spaces of hacking and tinkering”.

In the context just described, the Maker movement has been pointed out for its educational dimensions and applications (see Dubreil & Lord, 2021; Halverson & Sheridan, 2014 i.a.). In particular, building of the definitions for ‘Making’ as a practice, ‘Makerspaces’ as communities of practice and ‘Maker’ as a type of community identity (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Dubreil and Lord (2021), identify and argue for the educational dimensions and dynamics emerging from it. More specifically, they refer to the Makerspaces as a type of learning environment where learners freely develop themselves by being empowered and awarded on issues related to their personal interests as well as the community’s orientation. In this perspective, learning is considered as a collaborative process where individuals (i.e. learners) discover social and other types of challenges and develop grassroots solutions. Hence, learning is not an instructed top-down process, since it is constructed on the basis of collaboration and community-shared practices. Therefore, Maker Culture seems to have a potential educational dynamic that could not only transform the communities’ local economies, but it could also serve as a mechanism of sustainable social change. 

So far, through a series of studies (Alley, 2018; Dubreil and Lord, 2021; Zourou, 2022); Halverson and Sheridan (2014) i.a.), it has been supported that the Maker movement, thus Making culture as a learning approach, leads to pedagogical implications in the field of second language and culture education. In particular, regarding the social context, where the necessity for linguistic and cultural diversity comes into first place in parallel with the demand for social sustainability and cultural equality, Making could serve a community-driven and collaborative approach for individuals to learn through accommodating to their environment’s cultural and language context. In other words, bolstering learners’ ability to understand and embrace the generic, linguistic and cultural diversity of their social surroundings turns into a way of fostering community’s sustainability and vitality (Clapp et al., 2016). 

According to Dubreil and Lord (2021), language learning in a Making context is transformed into a process “that constructs – and it is constructed by – the way language learners understand themselves, their social surroundings, their histories and their opportunities for the future”. Hence three dimensions emerge from this approach. The first is already introduced above and it is about the direct alignment of the learning objectives with the real world / social context, through a collaborative problem-identification and solving approach. The other two dimensions are based on the mutual relationship that is constructed between the learner and the learning language. On the one hand, learning a foreign language ensures for the learners access to new cultural contexts, while on the other hand they become able to bring “their previous experiences in second language use” (Alley, 2018). 

It has become evident that Making, except for serving education in general, thus becoming a mechanism of social change through education, it can also be considered as a means of promoting linguistic and cultural diversity. Simulating the real world, participants learn how to to engage in by definition divergent communities, thus re-interpreting diversity as norm through which they can redirect themselves to new cultural discourses, broadening their perception of the world.  

In section 3.2, you will have the opportunity to study some initiatives of this type we collected and introduce here.  

[You are strongly suggested to read the academic article of Dubreil and Lord (2021), which overviews the ongoing academic literature on educational applications of the Maker Culture and introduces a series of educational language learning activities all based on the Making approach. Also, you are encouraged to study the academic articles of Alley (2018) and Zourou (2020), who examine and propose language and culture learning environments and situations and methods directly related to the concept of Making.]

3.2 Multilingual Cooking

CC BY-SA 4.0 Craig Adderley

One of the most common types of initiatives combining multilingualism and cultural exchange with Making, is what is commonly called ‘Multilingual cooking’. It is necessary to be clarified that while ‘cooking’ as a making activity does not directly correspond to the narrow meaning of ‘Making’ that is commonly used in the Maker Culture, since it does not ends up with a particular artifact, nor the procedure of preparing food is identical to that of making a prototype, it fits with the broader sense of ‘Making’ since it is an activity  enabling someone’s creativity and serves a particular goal. 

More particularly, in a multilingual and multicultural context, the goal, beyond preparing food, could be that of cultural exchange, embracing diversity and multilingual skills cultivation. Romero and Sabater (2016) examining the case of the ‘World Cooking’ project that established a kitchen in a university library space, conclude that the library became a cultural reference of the whole territory serving as a “social integration center in an area with a lot of diversity of origins and nationalities”. Hence, beyond promoting diversity regarding, ages, genders and various cultures, the place served as a platform for engagers to develop their multilingual skills and coming in contact with people of various backgrounds.

[You can also check a similar initiative, here, that compared to the one presented here is not permanent, but periodic.]

3.3 The Habibi Makerspace

CC BY-SA 4.0 Ron Lach

After the refugee crisis of 2015 in Greece, Ioannina, a city in the Epirus region, was selected by the government to become a hot-spot of accommodating the incoming refugees. In this context, many activities took place in order to assist refugees to adapt to the new environment. Thus, the Habibi workspace emerged as such an initiative. 

In particular, the operation of the workspace is designed in such a way that serves a double goal. On the one hand, it aims to assist locals to embrace and integrate refugees in their local community and economy, through developing common practices on the basis of shared making activities. On the other hand, it aims to offer refugees the perspective of being useful and active members of the local community. Moreover, since refugees derive from different national and cultural and language backgrounds, the workspace aims to bridge the gaps among them, by supporting cultural exchange and multilingual learning in the community of refugees. All these workspace functions are derived from its design that combines not only making activities with the narrow sense of the term (wood or metal workshops), but also making activities with the broader sense of the terms, such as cooking and media labs.

To learn more about the multicultural and multilingual aspects of the Habibi workspace, you can visit Jeremie Francois’ blog post available here.

3.4 Repair Cafés

Repair Cafés is a special type of Makerspaces, in the sense of the definition provided in Unit 1 by Halverson and Sheridan (2014), focusing on repairing broken things instead of developing new prototypes. In this context, it is pointed out (Hickman, 2021; Madon et al., 2021; Meißner, 2021) that Repair Cafés serve as a common ground basis or in other words as a platform fostering social inclusion through the promotion of cultural and language diversity. 

There are many examples of Repair Cafés all around the world, part of the Repair Cafés network. Here are some indicative examples: the ‘Repair together’ Café and the ‘Recycle at the source’ Café.

Unit 1 Quiz

Unit 2 Quiz

Bibliography

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