MAKE Aberdeen visit - Friday 17th March

As part of our Digital Age module our class paid a visit to MAKE Aberdeen, a fabrication lab located on Belmont Street, Aberdeen. The makerspace provides access and training for a variety of design, printing and other related creative services in an effort supported in parts by the university, Aberdeen City Council, Creative Scotland and the UK Government Super Connected Cities Program. It is open for use to the general public with a reduced rate for students.

Each local authority in Scotland has recently been equipped with a 3D printer for their local library and a 3D printing champion responsible for the promotion of the equipment and the training of other users. As MAKE is equipped with a variety of 3D printing facilities this was an excellent introduction to the technology available, to some of the creative opportunities it provided and to the impact of this on our role as professionals.

It was inspirational to see how the technology could be used to promote learning – several of the projects on display were created by RGU students on design related courses such as architecture, for whom the 3D printing facilities are invaluable for prototype creation. More generally, the public uses the facilities for their own creative purposes, such as printing out the tiles, pieces and related materials for a custom-made board game.

Among the other technologies available for use by the community was the laser printer, notable for its capability to print extremely high resolution photographs on almost any material. Much like the 3D printer there is a huge variety of potential uses for this technology, such as the printing of custom-designed promotional materials for community projects and groups, including libraries, schools and charity groups.

We had the chance to design and produce our own name tag keyrings during the visit. The process involved training on the use of Adobe Illustrator on the makerspace’s iMacs in order to design our keyrings before exporting our designs to the laser cutter which cut our designs out of wood.

 Above: The laser cutter in action

We were also shown how a local school used the makerspace for their Harry Potter week, an effort to promote literacy skills in the classroom. The school was able to tie their classroom learning into a real-world example by using the makerspace to design and print their favourite character from the book. This sort of cross-curricular active learning is invaluable to fulfilling the outcomes of the Curriculum for Excellence and one that could potentially be replicated in maker spaces in suitably equipped libraries.

Overall this trip was an inspiring look into how the learning from our Digital Age module applies in the real world: how the makerspace can prove engaging to pupils and younger generations in particular; how it can be an outlet for creativity, a lab for creative learning and a tool for professional design; and showed us the world of possibilities that new technology can allow for makerspaces and libraries equipped with these technologies alike.

Find out more about MAKE Aberdeen at www.make-aberdeen.com