Drive your STEM outreach with a future-focused, fully equipped makerspace
Drive your STEM outreach with a future-focused, fully equipped makerspace
Why A Makerspace?
Makerspaces support and expand traditional classroom settings by providing hands-on opportunities for students to apply knowledge in tangible, action-based outcomes. Makerspaces are specialized hubs, underpinned by our thoughtful curriculum and cutting-edge fabrication technologies that foster collaboration and personal growth for users.
The effective integration of a Makerspace into your organization allows present and future makers to follow their natural curiosity about how things work and their natural interest for making things they want or need. Take them on a scaffolded journey through STEM during which knowledge is acquired “just in time” instead of “just in case.” Makerspaces break the mold of traditional education by providing a venue in which all areas of curriculum can be engaged and supplemented with hands-on, memorable experiences that encourage and embrace continual progress rather than initial perfection.
Drive your STEM outreach with a future-focused, fully equipped makerspace on wheels in your organization or on the road. With a fully equipped makerspace that can be set up anywhere — in classrooms, gymnasiums, libraries, organizations, or even outdoors — Makers in Motion® provides revenue-generating and mission-expanding programming that will establish your organization as a regional leader in maker-based STEM education. You can set up the equipment anywhere at your location or in the community to host maker workshops for visitors or students of all ages. Transform any space into a digital fabrication laboratory!
Not only does Makers in Motion® come equipped with 3D printers, laser and vinyl cutters, laptops, routers, and other high-tech digital fabrication tools, all packages include intensive training, standards-aligned lesson plans, a lab operations guide, ongoing consultations, and everything else you need to bring innovative, hands-on workshops to students, educators, and families anywhere. Additionally, we are proud to welcome all new Makerspaces into a long-term partnership with us as well as the entire network of other labs who work with us.
Carnegie Science Center and Fab Lab’s Makers in Motion® prides itself on being a pioneer in the field of design, implementation, and adaptation. We not only provide all the tools necessary for your organization to be successful, but also promise to ensure understanding with best practices regarding makerspace sustainability and mission-driven growth.
Makers in Motion® bridges content with social-emotional learning, allowing students to reconnect with their creativity, communicate with peers in meaningful ways, and build self-confidence through the iterative nature of the design process, where misadventures and missteps are not only tolerated but celebrated.
Attractive to potential funders, this metacognitive, mission-driven programming allows for a diversified income stream, from out-of-pocket bookings to multi-year sponsorships.
Explore and interact with our Fab Lab and see what a Makerspace could look like in your organization.
Testimonials
“Partnering with Carnegie Science Center’s turnkey Fab Lab program made it possible for us to have a digital fabrication program here relatively quickly and efficiently. Buying the equipment, program content, and training expertise was exactly the right approach for us, as we had no previous experience! They continue to be wonderful mentors.”
– Cassandra Henry, President of Science Spectrum Museum
“Makers in Motion has allowed our Polytechnic Academy at PA Cyber to hit the ground running! Our team didn’t need to spend precious time researching, vetting, and purchasing all of the necessary tools needed to provide quality STEM programming for our students. Makers in Motion did all of the leg work allowing us hop in the driver’s seat and immediately hit the road.
With a fully equipped mobile lab, the energy of our team has been able to focus on invigorating our students and encouraging them to make! A solid foundation of not only the latest fabrication tools, but also innovative curriculum, has unleashed our team’s creative flexibility to customize activities to the needs of our students and unlock our students’ potential both as engineers of solutions as well as engaged learners across the academic spectrum.
As a result of the success of our first mobile fab lab from Makers in Motion and the increased demand from our families all across the state of Pennsylvania, we have reengaged Makers in Motion to add multiple additional labs to our fleet at PA Cyber. We’re excited about the opportunities for increased engagement for our students as we continue to grow our partnership with the Fab Lab of Carnegie Science Center!”
– Thomas Brambley, PA Cyber’s Supervisor of STEM Education
The Value of Makerspaces
Just starting out your research into makerspaces and how they can support your organization’s mission and educational goals? Here are a few of our favorite resources that explain the maker movement and its remarkable impact on STEM education.
An Assessment Instrument of Technological Literacies in Makerspaces and FabLabs
Research study by Paulo Blikstein, Zaza Kabayadondo, Andrew Martin, and Deborah Fields
The Maker Movement: A Learning Revolution
Article by Sylvia Martinez from the International Society for Technology in Education
How Maker Education is Impacting Student Cognition
Article from USC Rossier School of Education
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News
Learn more about how the Mobile Fab Lab program has helped organizations expand their community outreach and impact on students.
— PITT Swanson School of Engineering
— Carnegie Science Center’s Science Impact
— Carnegie Magazine
— New Castle News
— Adam Savage’s Tested
— WTOV-TV FOX
— KDKA-TV
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Who We Are
Located in Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Science Center delights, educates, and inspires through interactive experiences in science and technology. The team of educators in the BNY Fab Lab Carnegie Science Center have delivered in-depth digital fabrication workshops on-site and on the road since 2015, introducing thousands of learners of all ages and experience levels to the dynamic, STEM-based maker movement. Through years of experience, the team has perfected the art of building a successful traveling makerspace and delivering workshops that spark creativity, collaboration, communication, problem solving, and critical thinking.
BNY Fab Lab Carnegie Science Center’s mission is to thoughtfully incorporate STEM competencies into making experiences that teach technological literacy.
STEM Competencies: All lessons in our curriculum are aligned to Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, and Fab Lab’s I Can Statements. By the time students have completed this curriculum, they will have a solid grasp of how science, technology, engineering, and math intersect with all areas of learning and life.
Making Experiences: Each lesson ensures students are using both computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) tools. These experiences in making give students practical skills to problem solve in the future while also inspiring them with the knowledge that they can enact change in their own communities.
Technological Literacy: Just 50 years ago, it was farfetched to imagine people having computers at home. Now most have multiple computers, some even small enough to fit into their pockets. While we do not know exactly what technological advances will happen in the years to come, giving students access to cutting edge technology prepares them to feel comfortable in ever-evolving, high-tech spaces.
