![]() Within the first year, he says the company registered a 200% increase in intellectual property development. He points to Ford’s initial launch of a makerspace at its facility in Dearborn, Michigan. “A million dollars in tools, and you can have a makerspace that can create hundreds of millions of dollars in income or savings for your company,” says Hatch. To create a makerspace, Hatch told the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) that companies just need to open a workshop with a variety of tools, which can include a 3D printer, a laser lab, woodworking equipment, CNC routers, metal fabricating equipment, welding gear, plastic fabricators, and textile producers. For Hatch and others like him, makerspaces in the workplace are an opportunity to reshape the approach to intellectual property development. Makerspaces have begun popping up in corporate and manufacturing facilities, and Mark Hatch, an advocate for the builders, doers, and tinkerers known as the “maker movement,” is at the forefront of what he calls a revolution. It could be a physical product.a digital product.but there is an actual product.” Corporate and Manufacturing Facilities in a makerspace, you’re actually going to create some kind of product. “So to begin with, just within the content area, (making is) going to allow for deeper learning. “We know that students learn at a deeper level and they retain more when they’re engaged in creative thinking connected to the subject, right?” says John Spencer, co-author of the book Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student. It’s all about giving students a hands-on experience that gets them thinking outside the textbook box. For some subjects, the makerspace may include items like cardboard and duct tape for others, it may include laptops, microphones, and green screens. They aren’t limited to certain materials, either. ![]() ![]() Makerspaces in schools run the gamut from designated rooms that students rotate between, to mobile carts moved from classroom to classroom. Here’s a look at each, and the benefits they offer users. Makerspaces can be found in classrooms, corporate facilities and manufacturing plants, and as standalone operations. In the United States, California, New York, and Texas lead the way in standalone makerspace development, representing 25% of the total U.S. The most recent numbers reported by Popular Science in 2016 revealed that there were nearly 1,400 active standalone makerspaces across the globe, 14 times more than the decade prior (surely, this number has only increased in the years since). It wasn’t long before the concept moved outside of Germany’s borders, with the name evolving to “makerspace” to avoid those negative connotations. While hacking today now conjures up negative images of cybercriminals out to bilk companies out of millions, the term hackerspace simply meant that the individuals in the group would attempt to “hack” technology or objects to make them do something they weren’t intended for in order to further innovation. Makerspaces as we know them today got their start in Germany the 1990s, when they were known as “hackerspaces.” These were open community labs incorporating elements of machine shops, workshops, and/or studios where hackers could get together to share resources and knowledge to build and create things. Much like Manufacturing Day, makerspaces are inspiring the next generation of workers, fostering entrepreneurship, and giving employees at all levels the opportunity to innovate. Makerspaces, sometimes called Maker Labs, are defined as “a place in which people with shared interests can gather to work on projects while sharing ideas, equipment, and knowledge.” Of course, today, there is usually a lot more technology involved, as makerspaces put more focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) concepts. If you remember the woodworking, metalworking, and auto shop classes that used to be taught in high school, you already have an idea of what a makerspace is.
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