Introducing: MakerSphere!

During the five years that our Maker Corps program ran, we learned a lot! The program evolved each year to meet the ever-changing needs of maker educators across the country, and now, we’re excited to be launching a pilot year of MakerSphere, new effort that takes into account all that we’ve discovered.

With MakerSphere we’re really digging into the model of hybrid engagement: blending in-person workshops with online and virtual work. The program is still centered around community-based summer work, but this time around we’re working with a regional model (several sites in the same geographical region) to see how we might help build up strong networks of maker education. Next week we’re off to Denver, CO and Austin, TX to facilitate our first round of pilot workshops — we’ll make sure to report back!

Participants in this year’s pilot effort are:

• BLDG 61 at Boulder Public Library – Boulder, CO
• ideaLAB at Denver Public Library – Denver, CO
• Gold Crown Enrichment – Lakewood, CO
• Gold Crown Enrichment: Edgewater Project – Edgewater, CO
• Fort Worth Museum of Science and History – Fort Worth, TX
• Mayborn Museum’s Design Den at Baylor University – Waco, TX
• Thinkery – Austin, TX
• BakerRipley – Houston, TX

There’s such rich, embedded, and sustained work happening all over the country, and we continue to be excited to learn from our partners, deepen relationships, and connect people across the board. In 2019, we plan to take this pilot to scale with more regions! Stay tuned!

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Maker Ed’s work wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors. Thank you to Cognizant for funding the MakerSphere pilot!