November 15, 2012, by Steve Davee
Welcome to the Makery from John Des Roches on Vimeo.
Makerspaces —places of invention, exploration and creation— are popping up everywhere, as stand-alone venues, and places within establishments such as schools, libraries, museums, and community centers. They even in appear in mobile truck or bike trailer form. For those with the drive to expand opportunities to make through makerspaces, finding the space can often be a formidable barrier. Fortunately, makers are clever folks, and are continually finding alternative ways to think about spaces.
From NYC comes one such alternative: The Makery, a model for pop-up makerspaces.
From the Makery site:
The future needs people who can creatively Make.
The Makery is a pop-up Makerspace – part shop & part workshop. A movable and temporary venue where youth and adults are encouraged to be curious, to tinker, to experiment, and to make with technology. The Makery is a portable digital playground, a place where communities can gather to play with the creative power of digital design and fabrication, physical computing, and computer programming.
Photos © 2012 NYCMakery
For their debut, The Makery transformed a Brooklyn art gallery into a makerspace. Makery team member Jaymes Dec recently shared their experiences in the Make: blog post: Lessons Learned from a Pop-Up Makerspace for Kids. Jaymes writes:
Over the last two weeks a founding team of makers and educators affiliated with HTINK, a New York based technology education cooperative, transformed an art gallery in Brooklyn, NY, into a pop-up makerspace for kids: The Makery. Aside from outfitting the space with tools like MakerBot Replicators, a vinyl cutter, soldering equipment, electronics, and fabrication materials, the heart of the transformation was the maker workshop environment. We set out to run 10 days of workshops on digital design and fabrication, physical computing, and computer programming for kids. In the evenings and on weekends we opened our doors to adults and families to come in and learn how to use the tools and materials.
The Makery will be running a “STEAM Festival” this weekend at a rural library in upstate NY:
For further information and inspiration, Maker Ed will be featuring a post from HTINK in the near future.
Looking for Makerspaces near you? Looking to establish a Makerspace? The Mentor Makerspace program has a growing directory of Makerspaces and resources for establishing makerpaces in schools.
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