MakerBase
Senior Capstone project
Presentation slides shown to investors for my senior capstone project.
Meet Sophia,
She is an 8 year old girl living in Watauga County that attends Parkway Elementary receives a free and reduced lunch at school.
Her parents collectively earn less than $35,000 per year and being one of 3 children, there often isn’t much money for luxurious things, after school care included.
Sophia spends most of her time watching television and playing free video games online, but finds that she is often bored in and out of school.
Before too long Sophia may not have a place to learn and experience new things.
Sophia is not an outlier this happens all across the country. Only 14% of public education dollars are spent on early learning education programs in the United States.
So to help children like Sophia rise above her challenges, we came up the idea of Makerbase, a Makerspace whose mission is to teach kids in the high country to learn through making.
Currently in the high country there are a few after school options available. In this chart we have laid out the different offerings of each of the programs and compared them to what our Makerbase would offer. As you can see our program offers Hands on learning, snow day programs, and serves the entire High Country Area.
The primary demographic that we are catering to is kids K-12, who will be participating mainly in after school and summer programs. We have also built in time to engage the rest of the community, such as adults and homeschool students, who are growing in numbers each year. In 2001 there were 34k homeschool students in North Carolina, whereas in 2014 there were 98k.
We plan to offer 3 main activities throughout the week. Workshops to allow community members to gain new skills and sharpen old ones. An afterschool program to allow kids to stay mentally stimulated after they leave school. and finally an open studio to provide a space for makers to come and create their wildest dreams and imaginations.
Many schools don’t have the resources to purchase the equipment needed to pursue the creative courses offered at our Makerbase. Our studio will incorporate a variety of different classes and techniques that cannot be cultivated in other spaces.
So, what does our Makerbase look like? By creating an open floor plan with modular creative spaces, the Makerbase will foster an environment that is both creative and inclusive and will help generate free flowing thought.
Becoming a part of the makerbase is simple, after paying an initial $20 startup fee, there are 2 different categories of membership to choose from. Closed studio memberships are designed for the K-12 demographic and the open studio membership is open to anyone in the community. These prices do not include the cost of the materials they would be using like plastic filament for a 3D printer, wood for carving, oils for painting, or foam for modeling.
Our staff consists of people throughout the community including famous makers, local artists and teachers, even high school students. within the creative space. Our goal is to recruit a tech executive or an experienced maker to run our space. We will engage with local community members to help keep the space functioning through teaching.
We want to create a board of advisors that would help ensure the involvement of the entire community. We also want to make sure we’re teaching an effective curriculum. We would do this by bringing in people like the superintendent of Watauga county schools, Executive Director of the Penland School, or Chair of the NC Arts Council.
We have chosen Watauga County as the makerbase’s location because of the population density and its central location within the High Country. This will put us in a great place that allows us to foster relationships with the local schools and open up opportunities for satellite programs in Ashe and Avery counties.
Our ideal location is within the main commercial corridor of Boone. This location is central to the 9 different public schools with 4,500 students as well as the four major employers - Walmart, ASU, Watauga medical, and Samaritans Purse.
There are a number of reasons why we chose this location. It’s a modular space which allows us to create an open floor plan that encourages collaboration within the space. And Makerbase, being such a unique idea within the region, and the first of its kind, we are going to need plenty of upward mobility, and the 60,000 square feet within the space gives us the option to expand in the future.
250 parking spaces makes the location accessible to buses and cars to drop off and pick up students. And if we were to partner with the local schools, we would be able to make it easier for students to make it there on their own.
When people first arrive they will be greeted by an exhibition space and retail center, which gives them the chance to see our students work and buy it as well. There is a glass wall that separates the reception area from the space, which allows them to see everything that is happening all the way back to the rapid prototyping lab. The spaces are separated by waist high barriers and glass walls, which gives our makers the feeling of togetherness, community and collaboration. The space consists of three classrooms, a computer lab, two dedicated creation labs and one that can be utilized in different ways, a collision space for the community to assemble and create, office spaces, and a secure storage room.
The resources and value that the Makerbase would bring to this community, specifically to students K-12 is unlike anything else currently being offered in the high country. You’re joining a creative community. A place that builds tangible skills and fosters imagination.
But what about Sophia? Well she is about to graduate. She was able support her family because she learned how to code C++ and HTML during her time at the Makerbase. Sophia was once worried that she wouldn’t be able to find a job, now employers are seeking her out. We believe that the Makerbase can not only provide a fun learning opportunity for students but it can also help create a future they may not have been afforded. This is just one of the many stories that can be created by investing in the Makerbase.
