Maker Studio Maker Studio
PHONE: +48 22 100 69 68 kontakt@makerstudio.pl ADDRESS: Nowogrodzka 56a,
IVp., 00-695 Warsaw CONTACT WITH US

Maker Studio THE INNOVATION SCHOOL

Every student possesses the gene of innovation, and we know how to awaken it. That’s why we’ve created an afternoon school for high school students based on the studio pedagogy and a workshop space, in which they’ll be producing technologically innovative solutions. What are those? That’s what all the fun is about – we’ll discover it together!

how the student learns? where the student learns? what the student learns?
creative workshop makerspace as a classroom learning new technologies and STEM

The school’s concept

We didn’t reinvent school. We reverted to developmental psychology and the science of knowledge acquisition to redesign it.

What’s it actually about?
It’s child’s play!

A high school student might be offended by such a comparison, but... his learning process at the Maker Studio can be compared to a children’s play in the sandbox. In our school, the student uses all his cognitive superpowers. We combine all the advantages of high school education and apprenticeship from a vocational school in one place.

A high school student might be offended by such a comparison, but... his learning process at the Maker Studio can be compared to a children’s play in the sandbox. In our school, the student uses all his cognitive superpowers. We combine all the advantages of high school education and apprenticeship from a vocational school in one place.

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HEAD, HANDS, SENSES

A child plays and learns using all of its biological superpowers: cognitive (head), motor (hands) and sensory (senses) functions.

DEVELOPING POTENTIAL

The child works at the limit of his potential: he uses what he already knows, but he’s curious to discover and learn new things.

I’M A BOSS

The child’s interests are both the driving force and the subject of his subsequent discoveries. Thanks to this, he’s highly motivated to implement and manifest his own ideas.

I’M A DESIGNER

The child, contrary to appearances, plans his play in detail: how, with whom and with what to play. The last item must first be designed and built. From the moment a toy’s invented, there are many stages, and each of them teaches the child something valuable.

THE PARENT = THE PLAY’S ARCHITECT

The parent closely accompanies the child in the process of playing and gaining experience. They provide him with creative tools and supports him in terms of content, building a specific creative scaffold.

TOOLS AND CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT

The play occurs in a place that stimulates creative thinking with objects that have many uses and make the child a creator. It all takes place in the company of other creators, whom the child can observe, cooperate with and be inspired by.

HEAD, HANDS, SENSES

In order for an idea to become a real product, the student must carry out many microprocesses along the way, for which he uses his mental, motor and sensory skills.

DEVELOPING INTERESTS

A high school student works on turning his ideas into real, functional products (physical or digital), based on his own interests and deepening them. In the testing process, he improves his product, discovering completely new needs and possibilities.

I’M A BOSS

It’s the student who decides which way to direct his creative activities and which ideas he decides to implement by facing problematic design challenges. Thanks to the fact that he quickly sees the effect of his work, he gains further motivation to act and learns through experience.

I’M A DESIGNER

A high school student creates a product that is supposed to meet the needs of its future users in the best way. In this process, he learns that his product must first and foremost be useful. On this winding road to finding the perfect solution, the young designer encounters many eye-opening situations.

THE STUDIO GUIDE = TEACHER

Since our student is the author and implementer of his own ideas, he doesn’t need a traditional teacher who provides him with ready-made answers. The Studio Guide helps the child find the right solution for himself. He acts as an assistant who helps the student through the creative process. That’s why in studio pedagogy, we put practitioners and experts - engineers, architects, artists and designers - in this role.

MAKERSPACE = CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT

We replace the traditional classroom, designed to consume knowledge, with a makerspace in which the student manifests his ideas and constructs them. Here, at our fingertips, are tools with a wide range of applications that enable the fabrication of innovative physical and digital products. The student works and collaborates with other creators who are a source of inspiration for him and the first recipients of his ideas.

How do we teach?

Have you ever wondered what will happen when we reverse the teaching process and start with experience and not, as in traditional school, from theory? We don’t wonder anymore – we just do it. We’ve based our school on the studio pedagogy, thanks to which we introduce STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) sciences by using them to solve real problems.

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Nauka przez projektowanie, kreowanie i konstruowanie projektowanie
Kultura głębokiej refleksji
Miejsce na własne pomysły i rozwój zainteresowań
Interdyscyplinarność i aplikacja wiedzy w praktyce
Demonstracyjne wykłady i wiedza „na życzenie

Our students don’t consume facts, but discover them themselves through experience while working on a project. We work in the design-studio model.

Students work on projects that don’t have a ready-made set of answers and only one solution, thanks to which they’re stimulated to constantly search for new solutions and question their own assumptions.

The student manages his own project and develops it based on his interests, often confirms them, looks at them, and even more often constructively changes them, thanks to which he significantly broadens his horizons.

In the design studio, the fields of knowledge mix and complement one another; the student is assessed on the use of knowledge and not for reciting incomprehensible rules.

Students gain knowledge through the context of their projects. Simply put, they acquire knowledge when they need it and they therefore understand it better from the very beginning. All this is done in the form of inspirational lectures.

Where do we teach?

Along with the learning process, the space in which we work also changes. In our school, the lecture room is replaced by a workshop full of tools that allow the student to manifest his ideas in the form of working prototypes created, among others, in 3D printing technology. The makerspace is a creative space where STEM and Art meet and interact to provide complete solutions together.

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The makerspace is:

A space for thought and cooperation – in the early stages of an educational project, students take part in lectures classes with tutors, during which they observe their skills and learn about many fields. It’s also a place where we ask the first questions, get to know the needs of recipients, and generate ideas.

A space for construction and fabrication – here, too, the design goes a long way from idea to implementation. We start with sketching and working in 2D. Then, the first 3D products are made of paper or clay. When the project is already advanced and the details start to matter, we model it in 3D, and then print the pre-production prototype on a 3D printer, laser cut it or even sew it using a sewing machine.

What do we teach?

“What if...?” This question is raised at the beginning of every breakthrough solution or modern technology. In our school, we ask it again and again to reject good answers, constantly looking for better ones. Our students gain extensive knowledge in the field of STEM and test it immediately in the creative process (Design Thinking). In this way, they acquire unique skills to create truly innovative solutions in the future.

STEM

We build project tasks so that the use of STEM is a natural part of them. Our students are encouraged to develop their own interests and ideas in a technological context. We believe that thanks to this, learning will come to them with greater ease and understanding. At the same time, we combine many sciences in one creative process:

  • mathematics, e.g. geometry needed in 3D modeling
  • physics, e.g. mechatronics, used when assessing the properties of the materials from which his toy is to be built
  • chemistry, e.g. knowledge of the properties of various gases, when he must select the appropriate filling of thermal insulation in clothing
  • biology, e.g. when he wants to use bioplastic in his project
  • art, e.g. when he wants his aesthetic solution to evoke emotions in recipients

In this way, the students themselves will discover the usefulness of sciences and thus build positive associations with them. We’re convinced that we’ll encourage the students to develop this passion at the next stages of their education (e.g. to choose to major in science).

Design
Thinking

This method was created to solve unusual, so far unprecedented, innovative problems. Will those that our students face be like that? They’ll certainly be constructed in such a general way that everyone will be able to interpret them completely differently, and the solution that they design will be related to their interests. In this way, our students will learn to use their knowledge effectively across disciplines, ask accurate questions, communicate skillfully and focus on the needs of their recipients.

We distinguish the following stages according to which our students work.

  • Empathize – a deep understanding of users’ needs
  • Define – identifying the actual problem faced by users
  • Ideate – an intensive search for solutions
  • Prototype – a visualization of the idea in the form of a prototype and testing it
  • Test – a verification of the prototype’s functionality In case of satisfactory results, there comes the creation of a more advanced prototype. If necessary, it’s possible to return to previous phases.

New
Technologies

Each educational project at our school is based on design challenges that require the use of tools that allow one to externalize the planned solution from the stage of a mental idea to the physical 3D construction or the digital artifact. In this broadly understood fabrication and construction process, the student learns about new technologies such as CAD design, 3D modeling and printing, text or visual programming, using smart boards such as Makey Makey or Micro:bit, or laser cutting.

Developing
Ideas

What does each student of our school learn? Through thematic educational projects, high school students create and manufacture physical or digital products that meet the expectations of real users in an innovative way. The projects are intentionally open and undefined, do not have a single ideal solution, and can host many optimal solutions. This means that the end result of a research project is not defined at the beginning. Instead, the student starts with a design challenge that invites many potential solutions and is able to accommodate many different interests which the students of the school may have and use to carry out the project.

The creative workshop is based on the human-centered design approach (Design Thinking) and the use of new technologies (such as CAD design, 3D printing, text or visual programming, using smart boards such as Makey Makey or Micro:bit, or laser cutting) as tools in the process of externalizing one’s own ideas by fabricating and constructing them. In this process, the student acquires and uses additional knowledge and skills in the field of widely understood STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths), because each carefully planned educational project requires the use of school knowledge or the acquisition of extracurricular knowledge.

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