Our makerspace not about educational buzzwords like “individualized learning”, “differentiated instruction”, inquiry-based learning, or “maker education” (but those make nice talking points). Nor is it about making “stuff” using “shiny objects” like 3D printers, Makey Makey, or VEX robotics kits to be trendy (especially since scissors, hammers, glue, and tape work so well already). Nor is it about replacing traditional courses like woodworking, electronics, or textiles.

Our intent is much more simple: people learn best by doing. People have been saying that for years, and we don’t need more peer reviewed research, technological fads, or educational buzzwords to make the statement any more true. Whether it be a future software engineer building an app in the elementary school computer lab during lunch hour or an aspiring dj or music producer making a demo tape in their home studio or a group of high school engineering students constructing a solar powered car in somebody’s garage, people learn to make and make to learn. Period.

Rebels Makerspace and its Goals

From this simple concept, Rebels makerspace is formed with 3 goals in mind. First, Rebels Makerspace is to provide tools, resources, and support that help students grow their ideas. We believe people want to make and are more apt to make if provided the right tools. The problem is not everyone has access to a workshop or even tools. Rebels Makerspace wants to remedy this. Since we started, we’ve been gradually stocking our shelves with simple tools like scissors and cutting mats to more technical items like 3D printers and CNCs as well as fabric, needles, tape, glue guns,  and cardboard – things that all students may need to build prototypes.

Another goal of Rebels Makerspace is to create a community of makers. It is rare that people create and innovate in isolation. Instead, people create collaboratively, building off of one another’s ideas, “standing on the shoulders of giants,” as Isaac Newton put it. Since we began, we’ve been slowly trying to build our community by offering weekly, lunch hour workshops where students learn to use our tools and resources through short projects – whether it be a stress ball, a hologram projector, a lavender sachet (to help get better sleep), or a custom Cricut cut card. Our hope is that participants will eventually form their own groups, run their own ideas, and create something great together.

Lastly, we want the rebels makerspace to raise money for charity. This may sound like a goal that is unrelated to the concept of making,  of learning by doing, but that is not the case. This goal gives our projects focus, gives our participants context with regards to who their projects will affect, and challenges our members to work with and for our community. Furthermore, this goal teaches our participants that what they make can change the world – what better way, therefore, than to start with the world directly in front of them.

Aspiring writers learn best by actually writing as opposed to reading about sentence structure; grade-school musicians learn best by making and playing music than reading about musical theory; high school science students learn more about electricity by making and testing circuits as opposed to looking at diagrams showing electron flow. If we want to help our students become the next great inventor, designer, innovator, you-name-it, we need to foster an environment that supports that goal. The Rebels Makerspace is that place that allows students to continually build, test, fail, and learn from their mistakes in the community of other participants and experts with the same spirit of innovation.