Inspiring Creativity in Us All - Tinkering Workshops to Promote Diversity and Inclusivity

I am the Resident Tinkerer of a makerspace / fab lab at my high school. In this capacity, I maintain the facilities and plan for upgrades, as well as keep all of the tools in working order. I also work with students, teachers, and groups on passion projects, helping them articulate what it is that they want to achieve. In this process, I utilize design thinking and empathy to better understand the end user’s needs, and articulate them back to improve my understanding of the scope of the project that they would like to take on. Once that process has completed, I help them develop a project proposal of their work, including a timeline of deliverables, a list of learning resources and a personal learning network (PLN) that they will need to learn from. Then I teach various tools and workflows to help them achieve their goals. The process iterates on tinkering, failure, reflecting, and repeating until they reach their goals.