Makerspaces in Engineering Education: A Case Study

The recent years have witnessed a new generation of Makers working with new ways of knowledge generation for creation and sharing of digital and physical products. While this development has started within collaborative and grass roots organised networks; educational institutions have also embraced it by opening makerspaces and adopting elements of the Maker Movement in their offerings. This paper investigates how university driven makerspaces can affect engineering design and product development education trough a case study. We provide our findings based on interviews and data collected from educators, students the administrative and workshop staff of the makerspace. The findings are used to outline the challenges in incorporating the offerings of makerspaces. By discussing these challenges we identify opportunities for turning university makerspaces into innovation hubs and platforms that can support engineering design education. INTRODUCTION The recent years has witnessed the rise of the Maker Movement and Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and FabLabs. This new generation of Makers collaborate through loosely coupled networks and explore new ways of knowledge generation on creation and sharing of digital and physical products. The concept of makerspaces stems from grassroot movements; they are usually community-driven, and they provide facilities and means for (mostly digital) manufacturing to individuals. Recently, a new class of ‘institutionalised’ makerspaces have also been emerging, which are established by the industry, municipalities, and educational institutions to be a part of their innovation ecosystem. Makerspaces provide alternative learning environments, and support project and problem based learning. Especially, universities offering technical programs have embraced the idea of opening makerspaces in their own facilities, to support project based courses and student innovation activities. Furthermore, there are strong correlations between the core elements of engineering design education and the offerings of makerspaces, such as rapid prototyping tools, multi-disciplinary approaches to knowledge generation and creativity. A number of university makerspaces has opened in the past few years, with broad range of value propositions. While these places provide relevant offerings, and are being used -often indirectlyfor design education, their effect on both educators and students are unknown. In this regard, this paper aims to better understand: -Why have technical universities adapted the principle of FabLabs and Makerspaces as part of their educational offerings? -How does the adaption of FabLabs and Makerspaces affect engineering education?