Start Making!: A Guide to Engaging Young People in Maker Activities

by Danielle Martin, Alisha Panjwani, Natalie Rusk

Start Making! is a program developed by the Clubhouse Network to engage young people all over the world in Maker-inspired activities. With this guide, you will discover how to plan and coordinate Start Making! projects in your home, school, library, community center, after-school club, or makerspace. You'll learn strategies for engaging young people in creative thinking, developing individual and team projects, and sharing and reflecting on their creations.

Each session includes a list of the supplies you'll need, step-by-step instructions for completing the projects, and prompts for stimulating discussion, curiosity, and confidence. These fun do-it-yourself (and do-it-together) projects teach fundamental STEAM concepts -- science, technology, engineering, art, and math -- while introducing young people to the basics of circuitry, design, coding, crafting, and construction. They'll make paper cards and creations that light up, play music using a MaKey MaKey keyboard and Scratch programming, join together to make paintings with light, design and construct 3D sculptures, build a vibrating art-bot that makes drawings, and sew fabric creations with wearable circuits.

Dip into the activities once a week, run them as a week-long summer activity, or go through the guide in any way that works for you. By offering your own Start Making! program, you can inspire young people in your community to develop creative ideas, learn new skills, and share their creations.

The Clubhouse Network is a global network of community-based centers led by Boston's Museum of Science in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab.

208 pages, ebook

Published April 5, 2016

Reviews

[American Mensa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love to craft and make many things, so I was excited when I received this book. I thought that there would be many exciting things to make. The fact of the matter is that this book shows kids making cool things but does not always explain very well how to make them. For example, the "music creations" is one of the projects I tried. It shows what the music creations look like and the blocks one would need in scratch, a programming website, but they do not explain what the blocks do. I know that one could look up what each block did in scratch but then, why would you get a book that does not explain how to do it easily and clearly?

To conclude, I would recommend this book for ages 8+. I would do this because an older child would have an easier time, in my opinion, of looking things up and they would be allowed to use things like scissors. In the end, I feel like this book had a short circuit.
Review by Giovanna P. Age 12, Connecticut/Western Massachusetts

[C Harpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas for makers! Especially interested in Sessions 1-3.

[MyNguyen1709 · Rating 5 out of 5]

We've have trying Light it Up: Paper Circuits session in Orphan Impact classes at Vietnamese Orphanages. Students really love it when they could light the LED(s) up and could create a card with circuits. We could not find copper tape in Vietnam and we used copper thin wire instead, it works well too. Thanks authors (Danielle Martin, Alisha Panjwani and Natalie Rusk) for writing and sharing great e-book for teachers and youth all over the world who are interested in making things. Moreover, I and other Orphan Impact teachers were so lucky when we were trained by one of author of this book - Danielle and great Volunteer team from Team4Tech in March 2016. I really want to try all these sessions or combine to create new sessions in our classes. With Love <3.