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Democratizing the Maker Movement
aarondubrow writes: To its advocates and participants, the Maker Movement resonates with those characteristics that we believe makes America great: independence and ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness. But as impressive as today's tools are, they're not accessible to many Americans simply because of their cost and high technological barrier to entry. An article in the Huffington Post describes efforts supported by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies to create new tools, technologies and approaches to make the Maker movement more inclusive and democratic.
Just because we've renamed DIY to maker we have to re-engineer its socioeconomic parameters? I am so wanting to yell get off my lawn right now. millennials need a good swift kick in the face.
huffing and puffing. every activity has some barrier or barriers to entry. some barriers actually are good things.
All technologies are specialized at first and then spread out - whether it's printing or optical lenses or steam engines or whatever. It's good to speed up the process but the DIY maker movement has decentralized and come down in price remarkably fast. The technological barrier is one of knowledge - something that _mainly_ (not only) requires desire to learn.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Nobody bought me squat and I still did it, and if some jeggings wearing ear bud listening turd places his double latte on my bridgeport I will beat his ass.
... at what point did the expression "begs the question" come to mean the same thing as "raises the question", and no longer mean that the proposition being claimed is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What does that mean? Making these tools affordable and accessible to muggles is not a bad idea. I'm not sure what is "democratic" about that.
--fatboy
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
The first thing you can do is stop using the cringe inducing term "maker" and trying to make it into a way of life instead of something you just do.
All it has done is make a new line of trendy hipsters calling themselves "makers" who buy kits to make an LED blink for $10.99.
Not to mention "Maker Faire" is trademarked and if you want to hold one you need to apply for a license and pay royalties to Maker Media, Inc.
It's less about learning and more about an untapped cash cow.
when the old words were perfectly suitable? Is it because every new generation has to feel it's special and somehow better than the previous generation?
I would post here except as an AC because they are watching. They are watching.
They will never allow this. Never. Why fight them when it is much more productive to do other things? They still allow us to read even if they don't allow us to build.
It would be well to realize that most tools and accessories are merely commercial versions of devices that were originally made by hand with limited equipment.
-- Gingery, David J (2012-05-14). The Metal Shaper (Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap) (Kindle Locations 146-147). David J. Gingery Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
I haven't built anything yet, but have read the books and they are very interesting. Completely agree with DIY being renamed. I used to build things with my dad all the time growing up and particularly remember building a shopvac out of a 5gallon paint can.
What a load of bs. It is the Republicans that are murdering us. You shoul never vote for someone that murders you.
The Maker movement is awesome. and is a lot like shop class from back in the day, but with a lot more access to tools and retention of fingers. It needs some sort of small grant or funding initiative to get these things off the ground.
I just joined one still getting off the ground in the Everett-Lynnwood area (North of Seattle). Lots of potential, suffering from lack of funding. We get funds, we get tools. We get tools, we get more members.We get more members, we get more funds.
But just starting out... that lack of funds is a killer. We have multiple 3d printers, a laser cutter, and an electronics parts bin the size of a walk in closet, but its hard to find a big enough place to PUT it all, who won't mind us using a laser cutter on pleather or 3d printing vinyl, or using some louder equipment to cut and drill some t- slots
Its happening... but slower than any of us really want. and none of the places we have looked at for a permanent home are really big enough yet.
Be Left Behind (BLB).
Seriously of all the social inequality in the world, this one ranks way down on what it will take to provide equality to people.
I work next to DC in Crystal City and it has a TechShop. Membership seems expensive, and you can see though the windows there are not many members. When you do see people inside you never really see feverish activity inventing the next Roomba or Segway. This whole Maker movement seems to have become a scam. Great for early enthusiasts who created their own clubs to share tools, but now is some slick marketing scheme to make everyone think they can be the next Dean Kamen (and extract money accordingly).
While inexpensive/limited access to Laser Cutting tools and 3D printers may be keeping some good projects from taking off. In general these Maker Fares seem to be using extremely expensive tools for trivial reasons.
In the Early 80’s I designed and built a computer controlled animated sign with TTLs and an Apple ][ computer. I didn’t need some movement to get my inner geek on.
How about we not subsidize Maker Clubs for feel good reasons. People that want to create -- will. Many times a true inventor will find a lower cost way to get the job done than to use an expensive tool he doesn't have access too. And that is often worth far more than the original project.
Letter To Iran
Murdering how?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The republicans love the maker movement for the exact same reasons. Instead of "feeling bad about yourself" and getting politically active, makers have their nose in books and electronics and whatnot, making little gadgets and generally ignoring the rest of the world!
The maker movement desperately needs federal government support.
That's the only way women and minorities will get access to makerspaces and creative tools.
Why, women make up half of all people, and the fact that they're under-represented in hackerspace memberships is clear evidence of pervasive prejudice and the "rape culture".
Just as there are few women coders, there are also few women hackers.
We only need to consider scientific research to see how this would work: before federal involvement, scientific inquiry was haphazard, capricious, and discretionary. Nowadays we have an organized inquiry into the frontiers of science at every direction of inquiry - eliminating duplication of effort, guiding lines of inquiry for best results, and generally eliminating risk.
This same model could bring the maker movement into the 21st century, bestowing the benefits of government bureaucracy on hackers across the country!
Sixty dollar do it yourself printer
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Free open source software to make it work
http://3dprintingforbeginners....
How much more democratic does it have to be ?
This can only be successful if the NSF democratizes Maker's Mark. Anything else is bound to fail in America, formerly known as the land of free or the home of the brave.
Really - if I wanted something Democratic I would buy something off of the shelf, because people voted with their dollars to make that product happen.
When I want to be a dictator over what I use I build it myself, to my own dictate.
The Maker Movement is about Dictatorship! Not Democracy!
That being said - I'm not a big fan of 3D printers. I see their appeal and all, but I'm more of a fan of taking a hacksaw, hammer, Dremmel and epoxy to whatever I have access to when I want to custom build something. Seriously - there are HP monitor parts on my bicycle, I shit you not.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Of buying cheap and selling at a huge profit
I have a serious problem with how the likes of makezine and sparkfun have carefully branded and shepherded its' customer base into a "movement" so they can publish step-by-step guides on how to buy commodity hardware at premium prices and replicate someone else's derivative arduino project.
And putting the means of production in the hands of the people is evil. It interferes with interstate commerce.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
- It's the white person's fault
- Men in tech hate women and keep them out in a variety of ways
- Men in general are evil unless they are gay or black and get shot by a white cop
- Anything a white person has ever succeeded at is largely due to their privilege
- Black people are held back by every force conceived by University Professors who study these things
- Christian's are horrible yet Muslims are just mischaracterized
- If you don't want unlimited immigration then you must be xenophobic and racist
I probably missed a few but that's the gist of it.
Who let the air out of her joy bags ?
Very funny. It is the Republicans that are using their thugs in blue to beat makers to death. They keep lists of names. They keep lists. They hate us. They want everyone to depend on corporations in order to live. They are fighting education. Here in Seattle, they forced the teachers to strike. They are not allowing children to learn.
You can make a custom handgrip for your tool without a 3D printer, just grabbing one of several available self-hardening blobs of goop wrapped around a tool. Some would require using greased rubber glove while squeezing to make grip.
You want to be a real maker, get some metal, drill set, file set, a couple micrometers and scales, and start sculpting metal. Graduate to a lathe and mill (non-CNC, plenty of tricks of trade to make curves and such. Or if prefer wooden things, you know what to do.
But in most cases you don't need a 3D printer that oozes soft plastic crap.
The Maker Movement is really just another Hater Movement practicing The Politics of Exclusion. Maker Privilege must be Checked and Confronted wherever it may try to hide -- even in the deep subconscious of Haters -- as yet another Badge of Slavery.
How can we remedy this attempt to revive the antebellum South in a new and insidious guise?
Are we to wait decades upon decades for True Equality to triumph as it hasn't yet in the area of Racial Equality?
NO!
Slavery must be met with slavery!
Haters should be forced to Make whatever people who aren't want.
Only then can we achieve Social Justice In Our Time.
Seastead this.
OMGWTF!
Previously sitting at +4 Insightful.
Thank you, whoever gave the final +1 Funny to the article.
(Humor... it is a difficult concept!)
This is the well known troll greenwow, he posts the same crap in every article. Read through this one and you'll see at least a half dozen posts from him.
About 15 years and twenty pounds.
Maker spaces accept paypal.
Why do people keep confusing "democratizing" with "entitling?" Because the urge here appears to be to take other people's money and to use it to subsidize an activity for people who haven't raised the money or made the effort it to support it for themselves. That's not "democracy," and it has nothing to do with such.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Where you have democracy you have division. The Maker Movement is all about community, all about just fucking doing it, all about togetherness in venture, all about maximising the potential of the individual by using his skills where appropriate and someone else doing what he can't, all about sharing the rewards. Fuck democracy. All that does is alienate 49% of the participants who will then go do something else, to the detriment of the community.
Democracy in such an environment is asking a carpenter to do fine electronics and a systems engineer to dovetail a cabinet. It ain't gonna fucking happen. Let them both do what they're good at, not what "The Majority" want them to do.
(I am a Maker, I know where my local Hackspace is, and I've been tinkering around in there fixing stuff that just seems to be laying abandoned. Just the other night I got a drill press working again (that apparently hasn't worked in about two years) and tagged it for an electrical safety inspection. Why? A: I know what I'm doing around mechanical devices, motors and pillar tools in particular, and b: it needed doing, the space has only two working drill presses. Three now. Waiting for a vote on something like that, it would have rusted away to nothing).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
".....those characteristics that we believe makes America great: independence and ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness."
That's funny.......I thought it was "slavery, religious fundamentalism and a ruthless oppression of the poor and disadvantaged."
Where did all those black people come from again?...and what happened to all the Indians ?
Sure make the Maker movement more inclusive ... but democratic? Are we going to vote on who Made the Most Marvellous Make? Vote in some Glorious Leaders to tell us what to do?
Why do we need to start "democratizing" something that is almost completely open source, including the hardware? Just because the masses don't bother to do the work needed to come up to speed on something does not mean those who are should stop and hold their fucking hands until they catch up.
FUCK
The 3D printers today are fairly generic and cheap, so the barrier to entry is low, comparable to the microcomputer scene in the seventies. In the future, you should expect more powerful and specialised 3D printers that will be much more expensive to make, buy or use.