—From Mitchel Resnick, professor and director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group, MIT Media Lab, and co-founder of the Clubhouse

Welcome to the Maker Community!

I hope you’ll enjoy building projects using the ideas, tools, and materials described in this book. In the process, you’ll learn many important things. For example, you’ll learn math, science, and engineering concepts related to electrical circuits, conductivity, light diffusion, and computer programming. These concepts are important and valuable. But that’s not the most important thing that you’ll learn.

What’s most important is that you’ll learn how to think like a maker—and to think of yourself as a maker.

What Does It Mean to Think Like a Maker?

It means that you know to start with a spark of an idea and turn it into a meaningful project.

It means that you know how to break down complex challenges into simpler parts.

It means that you know how to identify problems as they arise, to keep trying when things get difficult, and to come up with new strategies and approaches.

It means that you know how to collaborate with others, to build on the work of others, and to share your ideas with others.

Learning to think like a maker is more important now than ever before. To thrive in today’s rapidly changing world, you’ll need to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. And that’s exactly what you learn as you work through the activities in this book.

But the activities in this book are just the beginning. The book is called Start Making! for a reason. Even when you’ve completed all the activities, you’re still at the start of your journey as a maker. The challenge is to keep making!

What Are the Next Steps?

You might want to work on variations of the activities and projects in this book. What if you make one of your projects bigger? Or smaller? What if you combine two of your projects into one? Or what if you add some new materials to an existing project? How about modifying one of your projects to turn it into a gift for a friend?

Or you might try making a totally new type of project. For inspiration, take a look at other books, magazines, and websites featuring maker projects (like makezine.com). Or imagine a new project that connects with one of your favorite hobbies or interests.

It’s often helpful to make and learn with others. There are a growing number of Makerspaces and Maker Faires where you can meet other makers. And there are online maker communities (like diy.org and scratch.mit.edu) where you can share your creations and see what others are making.

Learning to think like a maker is a lifelong process. You need to keep experimenting, taking risks, and trying new things. There are always new ideas to explore, new tools to use, new techniques to learn, and new projects to share. Let your curiosity be your guide.

The LEGO Group has a slogan that I love: “Joy of Building, Pride of Creation.”

You’ll make your best projects, and you’ll learn the most in the process, when you embrace the joy of making, and when you share your projects (and your joy) with others.

Congratulations on joining the worldwide maker community! Keep making!

The Clubhouse provides a creative and safe out-of-school learning environment where young people from underserved communities work with mentors to explore their own ideas, to develop skills, and to build confidence in themselves by using technology. The program was founded in 1993 as a collaboration between the Museum of Science, in Boston, Massachusetts, and the MIT Media Lab. To learn more, visit theclubhousenetwork.org.

Walk into a Clubhouse and you will find groups of young people producing and editing films, building robots, creating graphics and websites, making 3D models and animations, designing computer games, writing and recording music, and much more. In the process, they become excited about learning and about their own future.

Today, The Clubhouse Network is a global community comprised of 100 Clubhouses in 20 countries, which provide more than 25,000 youth per year with access to resources, skills, and experiences to help them succeed in their careers, contribute to their communities, and lead outstanding lives.

Based at Boston’s Museum of Science, The Network supports community-based Clubhouses around the world by providing start-up support, professional development, new technology innovations, evaluation and assessment, access to an online community for youth, mentors, and staff, and more.

Core Values

The success of the Clubhouse community depends on five core values:

1. Equal opportunity Empowering youth by granting full access to resources
2. Relationships Fostering healthy, respectful, and consistent relationships
3. Creative process Nurturing a community of lifelong learners and producers
4. Diversity Encouraging an inclusive environment that embraces the rich diversity of our communities
5. Hard fun Engaging in digital media, art, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) tools to express, invent, and collaborate

For more than 20 years we have seen firsthand the impact of a safe, creative place that empowers young people to become more capable, creative, and confident learners. That is what makes us passionate about sharing the Clubhouse approach and the activities and projects in this book with others. We hope you too will see young people unleash their creative talents, build confidence in their own learning, and discover a unique voice of their own with which to express themselves creatively.

1. Danielle Martin Danielle served as knowledge manager and led the Start Making! program across the global Clubhouse Network. She started her Clubhouse career as a coordinator at the Boys & Girls Club in Charlestown, MA, and previously served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, supporting community-based media and technology programs. After obtaining a master’s degree in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she co-created a research group within MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media, the Department of Play, which mapped mobile technologies and youth activism methodologies. Now she manages programs for Team4Tech.org, which is focused on advancing 21stcentury education in underserved communities by engaging U.S.-based technology volunteers and IT solutions in collaboration with local nongovernmental organizations.
2. She started making by collaging on paper, then digitally in Photoshop, and by hacking Polaroid prints, but now she enjoys mashing up photos on Instagram or baking collages of treats for anyone who will eat them.

   

3. Alisha Panjwani Alisha is a designer and educator interested in exploring experiential and experimental ways of integrating storytelling, craft, wellness, play, and interactive technologies to create participatory learning practices. Her practice centers on nurturing children’s creative confidence with new technologies and encouraging their involvement in creative acts within their communities. She completed her master’s degree in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and worked as a research assistant in the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. Before coming to the MIT Media Lab, she worked as a design and research associate at Project Vision, an international research initiative based in India that focuses on developing appropriate instructional strategies and technology-related tools that foster creative cognitive architectures in young children from urban poor communities.
4. She started making art projects even before her mother let her use a pair of scissors, but now she makes her own fashionable outfits for fun.

1. Natalie Rusk Natalie is a research scientist in the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab who develops programs that enable young people to build on their ideas and interests. She is one of the creators of the Scratch programming language and is co-founder of the Clubhouse program. She also researches the role of motivation and emotions in learning. She earned a master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a PhD in child development from Tufts University. She enjoys making projects with others in workshops that combine recycled materials, LEGO bricks and motors, colored lights, and coding with Scratch.