2017 University of Iowa Theme Semester Grant, "Makers by Mail" Grant uri icon

abstract

  • While makerspaces (fablabs, hackerspaces, creative spaces) have steadily developed in libraries, university campuses, and community spaces over the past few years, these centers of innovation are often rooted in a particular place. Even mobile makerspaces, like the DHMakerBus, reach a limited audience by requiring users to gather in a particular place at a specific time. In response, we propose a new model for mobile makerspaces that emphasizes prototyping as pedagogy. The Makers by Mail involves shipping small, physical computing technologies and instructions to users using flat-rate priority mail boxes. The technologies used in the kits are selected for their portability, accessibility, and adaptability to a variety of contexts. As such, can be shipped across campus, across town, or across the country. Designed to support experiential learning - learning through making - the makerspace focuses on the computer processes that go into making rather than the products produced by them, emphasizing the process of making itself, whether successful, failed, or flawed. In its second year, the Makers by Mail Project has been presented at the University of Iowa's 4CAST '16, the annual HASTAC conference, and the Alliance of Digital Humanities 2016 Conference. Kits have been tested in workshops with graduate students and faculty in classrooms in the School of Library and Information Science and at a Makers Event at the Pentacrest Museums. During the Spring Semester 2017, Makers by Mail kits will be used in classrooms across the University in several Theme Semester courses, including: Christina Petersen-Boyles' Topics in Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies Surveillance and the Feminized Body, Adam Hook's Literature and Book Renaissance Texts as Technology, and Lindsay Mattock's Digital Environments. With this proposal we are requesting funds to help build out additional kits to expand the offerings from the Makers by Mail project.

date/time interval

  • January 2017 - February 2017