Maybe I'm getting older and in need of a career change but over the last couple of years have had a growing hankering to do part of a day per week making pop up maker spaces, especially working in schools. 

For those who are not familiar - Maker Space is a place where people can come to experiment with making stuff. Its kind of Makersphere, on the move and an expo all rolled into one. 

one of the best times I had with some of the guys from a church I was attending was when we had a dad and kids day. We grapped our jigsaws, duct tape, plastic and some 5ply, stole the wifes vacuum cleaner / leaf blower and made six foot diameter hover pucks. I'm not sure who had more fun with them, us or the kids. 

The schools are not doing the whole IT curriculum very well (IMHO) and technology is not well represented on the whole. If you dont believe me ask your kids, or any kids you know, how many of them have had even one lesson in using WORD, Excel, Powerpoint, Proper Search engine usage, touch typing etc etc. If we had done the same with kids learning to use pencils we would have handed them a fountain pen on their first day at school and told hem to write Shakespearean prose without a single lesson on spacing, letter formation, slope, pen maintenance etc etc etc. 

But enough of that - just as an idle question, anyone else out there vaguely interested in looking at maker spaces for schools, or creating pop up maker spaces occasionally, or just getting together geek shed style to dicker around with stuff - you know the usual stuff like making a nuclear missle from baked bean tins, fart gas and a pile of old mouldy cheese - that sort of thing. 

Also is there any directory of computer clubs, hacker clubs etc for kids in chch, or other places? I've got four budding mad scientists who would benefit from some cross contamination eeerr pollination of ideas.



Shane