Mark Osborne<\/a> introduced me to Arduino<\/a>\u00a0boards early in 2013 and then I attended KiwiFoo<\/a>\u00a0where the world of tinkering, hacking and making was opened to me.<\/p>\n Thanks to Vik Olliver<\/a> and Tim Carr<\/a> we managed to build our own 3D printers – something I thought I would never do. all at under half the price of a commercial one and the best part – we knew how the printer worked!<\/p>\n Combine this with the work that JJ Purton Jones<\/a>\u00a0and Rochelle Spicer<\/a>\u00a0are doing with coding during 2013 as well as the gifted and talented LEGO robotics programme led by Mary Fursdon<\/a>\u00a0and it is clear we are developing a maker culture.<\/p>\n Toward the end of 2013 I started working with groups of children working on an innovative Arduino based maker project called Zombie Robots<\/a>. Watching the problem solving and independent learning reinforced my thinking around deepening a maker culture at school.<\/p>\n Design Thinking is going to be a key driver in developing this culture. 2014 is going to be a year for me to get my head firmly around design thinking from a curriculum implementation standpoint. I can see strong links and many a long dialogue session with Steve Mouldey<\/a> from Hobsonville Point Secondary School. We both share an admiration of the book Invent to Learn<\/a>\u00a0by Gary Stager<\/a> and Sylvia Libow Martinez<\/a><\/p>\n The next steps are already in place. Robotics is no longer the domain of the Gifted and Talented programme – all our year 7&8 children will experience LEGO robotics each week. We have a new teacher joining our technology centre!\u00a0Kimberly Baars<\/a>\u00a0is into Robotics, Arduino, Rapid prototyping and wearable electronics! Zombie Robots will continue for small groups of students throughout the year. Kate Davison<\/a> – a self confessed ‘mad scientist\/artist creative who likes robotics’ joins our Junior Team and Dana Smith<\/a> brings experience in student driven learning projects to the middle school! The maker coalition is building!<\/p>\n The long term dream is to turn our Technology Centre into a 24\/7 community maker space complete with laser cutters, rapid prototype printers, kilns and design space. We would welcome the community in to work alongside children so that their creativity and wisdom would rub off.<\/p>\n 2014 will be about making steps and plans toward developing a maker culture. Progress and everyday stories will feature in this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tinkering and making is a natural human endeavour. We try to encourage it in our schools but how far do we go? We bought our first 3D printer a couple of years ago. To be able to draw on the computer and then print it out was indeed an amazing experience. At the start of … Continue reading Maker Culture<\/span> ![\"Programming](\"http:\/\/stephenlethbridge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_3704-300x225.jpg\")
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