Resources
At Makerspace Lab, we do much more than just sell white lab coats for kids and science party supplies. As your online source for all your science party needs, we take it upon ourselves to leave a positive impact on our community. Inspiring others to find out about what Makerspace can do, we invite you to create your own Makerspace.
Our goal is simple – to inspire and help teachers, technology directors, designers, and community leaders and provide them with the means to create their very own Makerspace. If you are interested in creating your own Makerspace, we can help with more than just children’s science lab coats! With a vast list of resources to utilize , you have everything you need at your fingertips.
Providing you with a list of free information, lessons, tips, and all the “how-to” guides available on running your own Makerspace, you can find what you need below. Take a look at what we have to offer and stay up-to-date with the latest DIY information to make your space great.
MAKE– Make Magazine’s website includes project instructions, the Maker Shed maker supplies store, project plans, videos, event listings and more. Make sponsors Maker Faires around the world.
Maker Eduction Initiative – Make Magazine’s Education sp
ecific site. Sign up to be part of Maker Corps, an initiative to increases the capacity of youth-serving organizations nationwide to engage youth and families in making.
MakerSpace – A new online community from Make. Includes a very helpful forum.
Instructables – Instructables is a place that lets you explore, document, and share your DIY creations. Includes detailed instructions on how to complete each project. Once done with your project, share your instructions and photos with others in the Instructables community.
DIY.org – Browse other people’s projects, share your projects, learn new maker skills, and buy supplies. It is easy to browse pictures and videos of hundreds of maker project ideas. Choose from the DIY excellent official skill patches.
Hackerspaces.org – A website to share hackerspace stories and questions with the global hackerspaces community. Projects are listed in a text based format.
Adafruit – Supplies for Makers, Maker project plans, Maker Resources and lots of maker project ideas. Projects are easy to browse, with a photo for each.
Creating Self-Sustaining Recess/Lunch-Time Makerspace Visits – Ravenswood School District started creating their Makerspace in 2013. Their blog shares lessons learned and concrete instructions on how to start a makerspace at an Elementary school. Note, they started with very little funding. I love that the first users were all girls.
Lighthouse Creativity Lab – The Lighthouse Community Charter School’s Creativity Lab is a model for how K-12 Educators can integrate sewing, programming, 3d modeling, design, knitting, building, engineering, and more into their classes and programs.
The school offers a Tour + Making + Program and Making Space professional development sessions for other educators to learn how to create their own school based Makerspaces.
Making in School Projects include hand illustrated instructions and materials lists.
The Lighthouse Creativity Lab resources are excellent and include supply lists and getting started checklists.
The Imagination Club with Mr. Solarz’ Class
Imagination Club Mini Lessons and links:
- The Pumpkin Contest: Pumpkin Contest Lesson Plan
- The Cardboard Challenge Video Links
- Box Trolls Cardboard Challenge Links
- Creating Your Reflection Video: Instructions for making a reflection video about a completed project.
- Independent Projects and Partner Project Approval Form
- Their Makerspace Theme Song
- Imagination Club Daily Ritual (Agenda)
- Classroom Map: Students know how the room should be left at the end of the day.
Downloadable Documents
MakerEd Resources
- The Maker Education Initiative
- High School MakerSpace Tools and Materials Guide from MakerEd’s.
- Makerspace @ The Tech Cookbook provides details for making 9 projects to make.
- Young Makers program for young makers 8 – 18 years old. Find a Maker Club near you or start your own. Download the Young Makers Maker Club Playbook from the website.
- Girl Scouts Get Making with Get Moving Maker Movement Guide.
- MakerSpace @ The Tech offers Makerspace sessions for kids throughout the summer at the Tech Museum, San Jose, CA.
- The MakerSpace Blueprint from NYSCI and Cognizant includes resources and inspiration for creating maker spaces, tech shops, fab labs and more. The Maker Program Blueprint offers a template for afterschool or summer programs and addresses the materials and personnel needed to create and sustain a program and includes the types of spaces that can be used, ideas about schedules and format.
- Maker-State Makerspaces operate in schools and community organizations nationwide.
- Maker Birthday Parties
- SparkTruck is an educational build-mobile created by Stanford DSchool students. Their site includes a helpful how to build a mobile makerspace” guide, “How to Make a SparkTruck”.
- The Exploratorium Tinkering Studio projects including Sewn Circuits, Scribbling Machines, Toy Take Apart, Cardboard Automata and more.
- ElementaryEdTech’s post about how they created their Makerspace. They address nuts and bolts issues like – how to direct students to activities.
MakerSpaces for Adults (Some kids too.)
- Global Hacker Spaces – Hackerspaces.org ‘s WIKI includes this comprehensive, user-maintained list of all active hackerspaces throughout the world.
- Hacker Dojo is a place for building robots, businesses, and holding events in Mountain View, CA.
- The Crucible promotes creative expression, reuse of materials, and innovative design in Oakland, CA.
- The Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA, provides an assortment of materials, tools, and technologies are provided for people to use as they explore and create.
- Visit a TechShop near you to take classes, use their tools, and get help from their knowledgeable staff to make something.
Videos about MakerSpaces
- Lighthouse Creativity Lab Project Videos
- SparkTruck documentary
- Silva’s Super Awesome Maker Show includes DIY videos filmed by Silvia (a young California girl). She illustrates Lillypad, Squishy Circuits, Arduino and Copper Etching projects and more.
- Extreme By Design documentary: Check out this documentary that was created by the d.school class Design for Extreme Affordability. Ralph King developed curriculum to be used alongside the movie to enhance students’ learning.
- 50 TED Talks on Education
- Sir Ken Robinson, How Schools Kill Creativity
STEM Education Resources: Free Computer Science Classes
A list of programmer education websites that are completely free to use. List provided by The Simple Dollar