Ace Monster Toys Presents: Hacker Scouts

Ace Monster Toys is a Hackerspace in the East San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to education, hacking, and maker culture. They are membership based group with regular free open-to-the-public classes and events. 

The Maker Ed blog is a place where we hope to highlight maker education work, in both formal and informal situations.  If you know of a program, place or person we should profile, or have post, please email Steve@MakerEd.org

Hacker Scouts Open Lab photos from Ace Monster Toy’s Flickr pool

 

September 13, 2012 by Samantha Cook

Hacker Scouts is a new program designed to acquire new skills, reinforce knowledge, provide mentoring, and build community. Our program is based on how children learn through various developmental and educational theories as well as a desire we see in the Maker culture for community and family inclusiveness.

Join us for Open Lab and bring your own project, or work on one provided by Ace Monster Toys! Earn badges and skill build through specific mentor-led workshops! Workshops planned include: soldering, sewing, circuits, programming, engineering and building, leds, dumpster diving and found art, printmaking, and more!

The idea is this: Twice a month we will hold open labs where we will have experts/mentors available to help kids with any project they bring in. There will also be a featured project that a whole workshop is built around that specifically targets skill building. In addition, there will be a menu of kits/activities that are available for kids that focus on a variety of interests, skills, and ways of learning. The structure has a method- it creates consistency and the opportunity for mentoring and improvement, the provided activities and featured workshops are designed to teach to multiple learning styles, and the program is inclusive and adaptable. Kids can earn badges or not for their skill building, and they can come every week or once in a while. We know age is just a number, but AMT will be targeting projects in the 8-14 year old range.

This program was designed and will be facilitated by Chris Cook, who has several decades of tech and building experience, and Samantha Matalone Cook, who has an MA in Education as well as two decades of experience in educational programming, outreach, and the arts. A dedicated Maker family, they homeschool their three kids in Oakland, CA. They will be joined by a variety of experts and mentors from the community to ensure a well rounded and high level of attention and skill building.

You can find out more by going to acemonstertoys.org