Why, a Makerspace or Tinkering Lab?
Contrary to popular notions, I think a Makerspace has a purpose beyond that of merely making or becoming conversant in the latest tech or gadgets & in recognising that, one can realise a Makerspace’s fullest potential in an educational setting.
The Maker movement is gaining momentum (if one is merely guided by Google Trends for the word makerspace or the attendance growth rate at Maker Faires). They also go by many names like Tinkering Lab/space, Fablabs & much more. In India, Niti Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission is actively sponsoring schools to setup Atal Tinkering Labs. The mission has already reached thousands of schools. I’d like to go into the “Why?” in a bit as I think it is vital to have a good understanding of that. But before that…
What is a Makerspace?
A Makerspace or a Tinkering Lab is essentially a safe space for people to design & construct what they imagine or see with physical material, electronics & software. I don’t intend the previous sentence to be a definition & I will be, hereafter, focusing on the “students” subset of “people”. The Maker Movement Manifesto makes a call to “making” as a fundamental expression of being human. There are equally grand agendas you will find elsewhere. I prefer to be less religious & simply call it a space where students come to make things or explore made products.
There is a vocabulary of making, of constructing, of deconstructing, of designing, of communicating design & engineering choices which one employs in a Tinkering Lab. This is largely a vocabulary of products & their interplay.
Hence, in a Tinkering Lab, I make things & talk about them in a language fairly specific & esoteric to making.
Why do I need one?
Most people justify the need for a Tinkering Lab as a place of creativity (why not an improv theatre space or painting studio instead?) or a playpen of nerds with cool gadgets. Some more serious minds call out to its relevance in learning by doing. Some religious minds call out to the virtue in building with your own hands & the beauty therein. Some believe there is an inventor or at least a maker in all of us. Some see it as a incubation space for learning about current technology & preparing oneself for the technology of the future. There are also the goals of visionaries that students will solve some vital problems of the “real” world in a makerspace. Some would quote thinkers & learning experts to justify the need of a makerspace, e.g.
“The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.” — Seymour Papert
While I don’t intend disagreeing with any of the above, I believe we need a Tinkering Lab because we are an inexperienced, ignorant bunch. In not knowing what is doable or achievable, we are ill-equipped to build models of the world & its ways but yet we do. A makerspace is a space where we allow ourselves to confront our ignorance & act upon it. We are sanctioned a freedom to try & fail fast — something not awarded in most educational environments.
In addition to the above, I would also introduce the fact that we are very poor as a species in predicting the future.
I remember Sir Ken Robinson also making a claim of similar import in a TED talk. After that I felt people were quoting him or making statements like the above & proceeding to provide solutions to that in the form of “creativity is what a child needs” or “train them on this or that” or “ask them grand questions which nudges them to think about the world”. I find that that is following the same pattern of the mind — of trudging in the ruts of the known. When we are poor at predicting between known outcomes I can only imagine us being worse at predicting between outcomes “that don’t yet exist”! Yet our educational system is convinced that it has figured it all out.
This is why, I think, a makerspace is a best fit. It is our preparatory ground for the unpredictability of the future. Given that I don’t know what kind of jobs will be there, I am better off having multiple skills as well as the skill to pick up any new skill in an efficient way. By exposing me to different tools, materials, problems, methods, technologies, teams & ecosystems, I am constantly being discouraged from forming a comfort zone. I am also learning, subconsciously, how to learn & cope with the new. This keeps me fresh & at ease in a changing world. It is not about the making but using the workout of making & building to train your muscles to be nimble & alert.
A Makerspace is where resilience to uncertainty & an agility to respond to the unknown should be inculcated under the garb of making & learning about making.
If all that a Makerspace brings to a student is the ability to operate a 3D printer or assemble a packaged kit drone, I feel, it has failed as a Makerspace or Tinkering Lab. However, if the space constantly challenges the student to work with & be fluent in, say, operating a handloom, taking apart a wind-up watch, programming a 3D printer, operating a welding machine, a lathe, manipulating paper cups, popsicle sticks, assembling Arduino boards, Lego WeGo, Trashbots, wooden planks & strips of cotton rags & are not perplexed by wants like “Program your rag-tag doll to walk towards you when you say ‘Come here, baby!’” or “Build a progressively self-strengthening bridge” then we are raising children who aren’t ill at ease in any situation & know how to go about acquiring the necessary skills & material to accomplish their task. They aren’t waiting to be told what they can do or not, or how to do something. It is not merely about having a number of skills but about the ease with which new skills can be learned & a Tinkering Lab creates a space where you are required to do just that.
With a student trained to pick up & respond to new things, tools, technologies, environments, people & phenomena, they are prepared for a future with vocations that aren’t yet known (and they might not be in the space of making or manufacturing). That, to me, is why we need a Makerspace.
