Programs
Supporting the people that mentor our students in making
1. Maker Fellows
Student course assistants that support our students in makerspaces and making courses across campus, meeting regularly to exchange ideas and connect our community. Fellows are selected and trained within their departments, while managed and supported by making@stanford.
2. Making Mentors
Lecturers, teaching staff, and expert practitioners who teach making courses and provide individualized student support in our makerspaces. Mentors work in spaces across campus, meeting regularly to exchange ideas and connect our community. Mentors are selected, trained, and supervised by faculty or staff in their departments and supported by making@stanford.
3. Hands-On Heroes
Incentive program to encourage faculty to spend overload time adding physical design and making to their courses or collaborating with Making Mentors. Prioritizes new course elements, gaps in degree programs, and emerging strategic areas.
4. Making Support Team
Professional staff that make our makerspaces hum, allowing mentors and fellows to spend their time teaching and guiding our students. Specialists in equipment maintenance, material inventory, digital content creation, administration, and program leadership. Staff support all making courses and makerspaces associated with making@stanford.
Creating accessible making courses in every discipline
5. Accessible Making Courses
Courses that use physical design and making to teach concepts from disciplines across the university. Courses are developed by Making Mentors in collaboration with Hands-On Heroes and delivered by Making Mentors and Maker Fellows, utilizing all making@stanford programs. Priority is given to entry-level courses with no prerequisites, courses that address unmet learning needs, courses that address the interests of a new group of students, courses with learning goals beyond the use of making equipment, and courses that add to the diversity of formats. Courses are expected to appeal to students from a wide range of disciplines, including: Aeronautics & Astronautics, Architecture, Art History, Art Practice, Bioengineering, Biology, Chemistry, Communication, Computer Science, Economics, Education, Electrical Engineering, English, History, Human Biology, International Relations, Management Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Medicine, Music, Physics, Political Science, Product Design, Psychology, Robotics, Science Technology & Society, Sustainability, Symbolic Systems, and Theater and Performance Studies.
6. Multiplying Making Courses
Enabling existing popular courses involving physical design and making to grow to meet student demand, making use of the Making Mentors, Maker Fellows and all other making@stanford programs.
7. Making Materials
Materials for student design projects, provided to making courses and makerspaces. Sustainable material sourcing and lifecycle analysis in collaboration with School of Sustainability researchers. Managed by the Making Support Team with input from the entire making@stanford community.
8. Making Equipment
New equipment to allow new making courses and help makerspaces reach their full potential. Prioritizes demonstrated needs and specialization of makerspaces around particular processes, building depth and breadth across the campus as a whole. Managed by the Making Support Team with input from the entire making@stanford community.
9. Making Room
Renovating, reallocating, or expanding makerspaces in which facility features are the critical limiting factor in delivering an excellent educational experience to our students. Finding space for student groups. Managed by the Making Support Team with input from the entire making@stanford community.
10. Technology-Driven Training
Developing new methods that leverage technology for more effective training on basic aspects of making equipment use, including asynchronous videos and digital tutorials accessible while working with equipment. Developed by the Making Support Team with guidance from researchers in education.
11. Process Training Modules
Short in-person sessions providing training on a single fabrication process, delivered by makerspace staff, coordinated to train students in courses from around the University that use these processes to achieve separate, domain-specific learning goals. Developed and taught by Making Mentors.
12. Research on Making in Education
Studying the use of physical design and making to achieve discipline-specific learning goals, develop soft skills, and form community, in our classrooms and in external educational settings. PhD student Fellowship program, supervised by Education faculty and supported by making@stanford.
Coordinating the making community at Stanford
13. Making a Splash
Raising awareness of physical design and making courses, makerspaces, and making@stanford programs through a new course designation (MAKING), classification in existing WAYS categories, pop-up events, installation art, web presence, and social media content. Managed by the Making Support Team with input from the entire making@stanford community.
14. Drawing the Community Together
Organizing stakeholders in physical design and making courses, makerspaces, and student-led groups with regular newsletters, meetings, tours, and events that highlight the creativity and brilliance of our students and the incredible dedication to education that define the community of making@stanford. Managed by the Making Support Team with input from the entire making@stanford community.
15. Building a Diverse and Supportive Community, with Intention
Through making@stanford, we will work together to build supportive communities that welcome every member of our diverse campus and help students through challenging times. We will emphasize outreach to marginalized groups, for example through events with apposite student organizations.
16. Making Advisory Board
Bringing together leaders from beyond our campus to help us identify new ways to achieve our goals and address the most critical educational needs of the next generation of leaders.