November 1, 2012 by AnnMarie Thomas
This is the second part of three posts sharing stories from our panel of maker parents at this year’s World Maker Faire. Meet the panelists and read their answers to the question “How did your child get involved in making?” in our previous post here. Part three, coming tomorrow, will share answers to the question “What resources do you recommend to other parents who have kids interested in making?”
We’d love to have your thoughts in the comments section: (1) Do you have additional questions for the panelists? (2) Maker parents- how would you would answer these questions?
MAKER ED: What sort of maker activities/programs do your kids participate in?
JULIE: Joey participates in Maker Faires – a lot of them! He also hangs out at our local hackerspace Heatsync Labs. He started his own business/hobby making kits for young makers. While in 8th grade Joey started a Make Club at his grade school. They meet every Wednesday morning learning: snap circuits, origami, arduino, squishy circuits and much more. Now in 9th grade, he is going to Arizona State University’s Herberger Young Scholar’s Academy. The school is a STEM school with LOTS of fantastics programs and hands on activities.
MARIE: Aside from the making (sewing, crafting, painting, building) that Annika picks up whenever she has free time, we have started a Young Makers group in our neighborhood. The young makers are primarily girls between 9 and 13 who design and sew wearables with soft circuits, from bags that light up with Aniomagic LEDs to LED-spangled gowns to Annika’s latest creation – a vest with Lilypad Arduino controlling the lights.
JAMES: Sylvia has done Lego engineering summer camps (only girl there!) and has even helped teach a few classes at her school about 3D printing and video production. The rest of the kids will probably have similar inclinations as they get older. I know her sister Talulah (8 years) really wants to get her robot design off the ground, and brother Dorian (5 years) is already planning his travels to space (albeit with dinosaurs).
CECILIA: Andrew participated in his elementary school science fair for the 3 years he was eligible; he participated in Science Olympiad (after school program) at his middle school. Andrew attended idTech Camp at age 12 and took java and robotics; he attended National Computer Camp last summer. He also attended the Summer Institute for the Gifted and took a short engineering course. He likes to go to museums and really understand exhibits such as at the Intel museum, the Computer Science Museum, the Leonardo De Vinci exhibit, Discovery Channel Center’s spy exhibit in NYC, etc. Andrew has been in the Larchmont Young Makers group since Nov. 2011 – it took a summer break and is now running again. He is working on a traffic light for the school hallway and is interested in doing experiments with sensors and robots. Please see our website and Andrew’s page. For summer when he is old enough, he would LOVE to intern at Make and/or Microsoft, Intel or Google!!
Read the first part: “How did your child get involved in making?” here.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the next question: “What resources do you recommend to other parents who have kids interested in making?”
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