Maker Faire Madness

Maker Faire Madness=GOOD STUFF!    Joanna Doyle just hosted a Maker Faire alongside her students. Although she describes it as a “twisty-turny journey”, the experience was REAL.  The Maker Faire was all about taking chances, messing up, and participating in a BIG challenge. Joanna Doyle was perfectly comfortable with the messiness of it all.  She emphasized that the Maker Faire was not solely about a final product, but embracing the learning experience along the way.

With a focus on creativity, collaboration, communication, persistence, and problem-solving, the young makers began by writing a Micro grant for their projects.  The grant focused on three simple questions…What do you want to learn? How do you want to learn it?  How are you going to make your learning public?  The grant offered students a chance to receive a desired budget for necessary materials.  The young makers chose all sorts of projects!

When asked about the level of student engagement, Joanna shared, “Student engagement was through the roof because all of the kids had the chance to choose their project and geek-out about something that they were passionate about!”

The parents also shared in the excitement!  The audience was happy to witness a REAL learning expedition!

Projects included:

A skirt sewn using conductive thread, a micro-controller and LED’s to make it SPARKLE!

A robot that creates drawings using vectors.

Using Food Chemistry to make edible glass potato chips.

Creating a robot that draws on eggs and other round objects.

Sounds amazing, right?  These inventors had big ideas and turned them into something REAL! Below is a glimpse of a student making a Game-boy!