As part of two- to three-day Hackdays, students explore how they would like to improve their school environment and turn their ideas into reality using technical and digital tools.
A Creative Space for Students
Make Your School – Your Idea Workshop is a project initiated by Wissenschaft im Dialog in collaboration with the Klaus Tschira Foundation in 2016/2017. Today, two- to three-day hackdays take place regularly at over 100 schools across Germany as part of the program.
During these hands-on innovation days, students identify current challenges and issues within their school and work in small teams to develop digital and technical solutions using microcontrollers, sensors, actuators, and creative materials.
– Make Your School
is supported by over 150 mentors from fields such as computer science, design, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering.
At the heart of the program is hands-on, self-driven tinkering and teamwork.
Impact
The students’ projects range from noise-level traffic lights and cafeteria queue alerts to school irrigation systems, weather stations, a tampon dispenser and even a first-aid robot.
– workshop participant
Through the hackdays, students learn to take responsibility within teams while developing scientific, technical and social skills in a playful and engaging environment.
» Above all, the goal is to empower young people — to remove their fear of coding and to experience a sense of self-efficacy through creating together. «
– Mio Kojima (MYS mentor)
Building a maker culture
To further embed making and hacking activities into everyday school life, we supported Make Your School with four pilot schools in 2022/23 in setting up their own makerspaces and launching their first making projects.
The insights gained during the pilot phase were compiled into a practical guide, which can be downloaded from the Make Your School website:
Development team
As the external development team for Make Your School, Paul and Michael have been supporting the project since its very first pilot phase.
Our work includes developing the educational concepts and the project toolkit, designing learning materials, as well as creating and delivering training sessions for teachers and mentors.
Peter contributed as an illustrator, Paula as a developer and mentor, Sebastian supported the development of technical hacks, and Malte worked on prototyping and fabrication — including, for example, the trophies for the Maker Festival.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also supported Make Your School in developing a concept for remote hackdays to inspire students to tinker and code in a virtual setting. The two-day remote hackdays took place via video conferencing in a virtual classroom and enabled students to collaborate in small groups from home, developing ideas and building prototypes together.
During 2022/23, we accompanied the pilot rollout of Start Your Makerspace and are now supporting Make Your School in continuously evolving the program, including the development of a digital mentor platform
our
As the external development team for Make Your School, Paul and Michael have been supporting the project since its very first pilot phase.
Our work includes developing the educational concepts and the project toolkit, designing learning materials, as well as creating and delivering training sessions for teachers and mentors.
Peter contributed as an illustrator, Paula as a developer and mentor, Sebastian supported the development of technical hacks, and Malte worked on prototyping and fabrication — including, for example, the trophies for the Maker Festival.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also supported Make Your School in developing a concept for remote hackdays to inspire students to tinker and code in a virtual setting. The two-day remote hackdays took place via video conferencing in a virtual classroom and enabled students to collaborate in small groups from home, developing ideas and building prototypes together.
During 2022/23, we accompanied the pilot rollout of Start Your Makerspace and are now supporting Make Your School in continuously evolving the program, including the development of a digital mentor platform
Insights from our
With deep expertise in technology, process design and Design Thinking, the team has supported Make Your School from the very beginning of the pilot phase. The collaboration has not only been professionally outstanding, but also a true human and creative enrichment.
Photos:
Gerhard Kopatz / Wissenschaft im Dialog
hello@whywedo.com
+49 611 16862110
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65183 Wiesbaden
Germany
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