Create a dynamic space for designing and building DIY electronic hardware, programming, and manufacturing projects. With this illustrated guide, you’ll learn the benefits of having a Makerspace—a shared space with a set of shared tools—that attracts fellow makers and gives you more resources to work with. You’ll find clear explanations of the tools, software, materials, and layout you need to get started—everything from basic electronics to rapid prototyping technology and inexpensive 3D printers. A Makerspace is the perfect solution for many makers today. While you can get a lot done in a fully-decked out shop, you’ll always have trouble making space for the next great tool you need. And the one thing you really miss out on in a personal shop is the collaboration with other makers. A Makerspace provides you with the best of both worlds. Perfect for any maker, educator, or community, this book shows you how to organize your environment to provide a safe and fun workflow, and demonstrates how you can use that space to educate others.

Makerspaces—local workshops that offer access to and training on fabrication technologies, often with a focus on creativity, education, and entrepreneurship—proliferated in the 2010s, popping up in cities across the world. Beyond the Makerspace is a longitudinal, ethnographically informed study of a particular Seattle makerspace that begins in 2015 and ends with the closing of the space in 2018. Examining acts of making with objects, tools, words, and relationships, Beyond the Makerspace reads making as a kind of rhetoric, or meaning-making work, and argues that acts of making things are rhetorical in the sense that they are culturally situated and that they mark boundaries of what counts as making and who counts as maker. By focusing on a particular makerspace over time, Shivers-McNair attends to a changing cohort of makerspace regulars as they face challenges of bringing their vision of inclusivity and diversity to fruition, and offers an examination of how makers are made (and unmade, and remade) in a makerspace. Beyond the Makerspace contributes not only to our understanding of making and makerspaces, but also to our understanding of how to study making—and meaning making, more broadly—in ways that examine and intervene in the marking of difference. Thus, the book examines what (and whose) values and practices we are taking up when we identify as makers or when we turn a writing classroom or a library space into a makerspace.

Getting Started with Soldering not only teaches new makers and experimenters the core principles of soldering, it also functions as an excellent reference and resource for beginners and more advanced makers alike. The book guides readers through the fundamentals of soldering, explains the tools and materials, demonstrates proper techniques, and shows how to fix mistakes or broken connections. It even includes guidance on more advanced techniques such as surface-mount soldering for electronics. From choosing the right soldering iron to making perfect connections, readers will acquire the knowledge and skills needed to form a strong foundation for a lifetime of making. Soldering is a core concept in making, electronics prototyping, and home repairs The many different types of soldering -- requiring different materials and tools -- are explained with easy-to-follow instructions Full-color photographs and illustrations throughout create a visually engaging format for learning Pricing and technical considerations help readers select the best tools for their budgets and needs Troubleshooting guidelines show how to repair solder connections that have failed from improper technique or from age

Created by Maker Ed with input from the wider maker education community, the Youth Makerspace Playbook provides context and support for those planning spaces for youth to make. In particular, it offers practical suggestions on finding a space to make, outfitting the space with tools and materials, exploring the possible educational approaches within the space, and sustaining the space in the long-term. With this resource, Maker Ed aims to empower and support educators and community members looking to start a youth-oriented makerspace. Of the Playbook, Warren (Trey) Lathe III, Maker Ed's Executive Director shared, "We know that starting and sustaining youth makerspaces is hard work and can feel overwhelming at times. By offering these resources, we hope to lower the real and perceived barriers for educators and community members to create fun and safe youth-oriented makerspaces, so that young people everywhere have the chance to gain confidence, creativity, and a passion for learning through making." Maker Ed is a non-profit organization that supports and empowers educators and communities - particularly, those in underserved areas - to facilitate meaningful making and learning experiences with youth. Maker Ed's mission is to create more opportunities for all young people to develop confidence, creativity, and interest in science, technology, engineering, math, art, and learning as a whole through making. For more information about Maker Ed, please visit http: //makered.org/

How can you consistently pull off hands-on tinkering with kids? How do you deal with questions that you can't answer? How do you know if tinkering kids are learning anything or not? Is there a line between fooling around with real stuff and learning? The idea of learning through tinkering is not so radical. From the dawn of time, whenever humanity has wanted to know more, we have achieved it most effectively by getting our hands dirty and making careful observations of real stuff. Make: Tinkering (Kids Learn by Making Stuff) lets you discover how, why--and even what it is--to tinker and tinker well. Author Curt Gabrielson draws on more than 20 years of experience doing hands-on science to facilitate tinkering: learning science while fooling around with real things. This book shows you how to make: A drum set from plastic bottles, tape, and shrink-wrap Magnetic toys that dance, sway, and amaze Catapults, ball launchers, and table-top basketball A battery-powered magic wand and a steadiness game (don't touch the sides!) Chemical reactions with household items Models of bones and tendons that work like real arms and ankles Spin art machine and a hovercraft from a paper plate! Lifelong learners hungry for their next genuine experience

The FabLearn Fellows share inspirational ideas from their learning spaces, assessment strategies and recommended projects across a broad range of age levels. Illustrated with color photos of real student work, the Fellows take you on a tour of the future of learning, where children make sense of the world by making things that matter.

Presents step-by-step instructions for woodworking projects using only hand-held tools, and includes advice on glues and finishes; instructions for making woodworking tools; and dimensioning lumber by hand.