#digitalmaking

This month’s theme for iSandwell Lab is on digital making and we’ll be teaming up with Fab Lab and The Raspberry Pi Foundation to bring you two free events.

So, what is digital making?

In a nutshell, it’s using tech to make anything from products, games to activities. It could be as simple as children learning code, people 3D printing anything from limbs to key rings and creating robots out of cardboard.

Wait? Limbs?

Yep, you read that correctly, digital making really does have the power to change peoples lives such as printing prosthetic limbs making it far cheaper and accessible.

A 3D printed hand

If you wanted to do something similar or you had a great idea, did you know you would not even have to travel out of Sandwell? Well, you wouldn't because we have a Fab Lab here which is based in Sandwell College that is open to everybody.

Admittedly I was aware of the Fab Lab but I thought it was it was only accessible to Sandwell College students which is not correct as anybody in Sandwell can go and access it, residents to social enterprises to charities.

There are lots of really cool things you can do with digital making that will aid your cause so if you are interested in learning more and some ideas on how you could use it, Fab Lab is hosting a free event on the 28th February at 1pm.

You can sign up for this event via this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/isandwell-academy-how-the-sandwell-voluntary-sector-social-enterprise-and-community-groups-can-tickets-54978616522?aff=ebapi

But that’s not all…..

Coding is now seen as a language and it’s a highly important skill, so much so schools are starting to teach it in some lessons.

For the older generations, we shake at the terror of hearing the word ‘coding’ but there are really simple ways to learn and if you work with young people did you know you would be able to set up your own code club without any coding experience?

Scratch - a program that teaches children the basics of code

Guess what! Yes, you can and you can find out how at our free iSandwell Academy event facilitated by The Raspberry Pi on the 5th March at SCIPS.

You can learn more about the event and sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/isandwell-academy-inspiring-the-next-generation-through-coding-and-digital-making-tools-for-youth-tickets-54795368422

At the beginning of October, I headed out to the Dubbo Sustainability Expo to have a chat to the Central West community about the IDX Initiative. It was a great event led by the Central West Science Hub (Dubbo City Council) as part of the NSW Regional Science Hub network. There were different stalls from community organisations and from around NSW including the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), Macquarie University, UNSW Physics, Taronga Zoo and Sliding Spring Observatory. The younger audiences even played a game of tag with Winny the Dinosaur (a Muttaburrasaurus puppet from the Australian Museum). The IDX Stall was definitely a big hit and had a steady stream of people learning how the 3D printer worked, printing their names and some eager young people initiating their own robot races throughout the day. But you may be asking yourselves, Why was IDX at a sustainability expo?

When we think about sustainability sometimes we only think about creating greener solutions, but sustainability has three pillars - social, environmental and economic. Sustainability speaks to the interconnectedness of people, places and things. I believe, that IDX is at the heart of that discussion and highlights the continued contribution that Australian Aboriginal people make toward innovation, science and technology as well as the amazing network of people.

“Since the late 20th century, as Western science has become increasingly focused on environmental sustainability, climate change and global warming, there has been a significant shift towards seeking solutions within Indigenous knowledge systems in order to mitigate the impact of globalised industrialisation. Central to this is an increasing awareness of the intrinsic resilience of Indigenous communities.” (Indigenous Engagement with Science: Towards Deeper Understandings, 2013)

Australian Indigenous knowledge has made a profound impact on technology, but sometimes we don’t see it. Did you know that NASA has developed a drone that will be the first to fly on Mars that references the boomerang? The boomerang is at the forefront of space exploration!

During the event I was primarily promoting the Flint EOI, an opportunity for regional communities to receive digital making workshops, training and equipment valued up to $25,000 as well as our digital making workshops, which is fondly referred to as learning experiences in IDX. The IDX learning experiences provides foundational digital making skills for young people through hands on activities such as robotics, coding and 3D printing and demonstrates the lineage of Indigenous Knowledge to new digital technology. It is an ambitious brief, but it hopes to encourage the next generation of Indigenous digital makers to continue the legacy of 40,000 years or more of innovation - and have fun doing it!

It was great to hear and see the response from the community and their enthusiasm brimmed when they found out that IDX would be heading back out to the Central West at the end of November to facilitate a number of learning experiences. I met a teacher from Wellington Primary School and he really illustrated the need to inspire young people and move beyond traditional education environments. He immediately, jumped at the opportunity to bring some students to our stop over in Wellington.

IDX is a big idea—big aspiration, big goals, big challenges. As part of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, we have aspirations to promote and support IDX nationally.

But we know (from hard-won experience) that if we try to do that straight off the bat, there’s a high likelihood we’ll get it wrong.

While we encourage prototyping and “safe failure”, we don’t want to stuff it up at the big picture level.

We’ve used the phrase “Think big. Start small. Scale fast.” before.

You may have noticed that a lot of our recent activity has been happening at the IDX Hub, in Redfern. This is not because we intend to stay here or we’re focused only on Sydney-siders (or urban dwellers for that matter).

It’s part of this approach to doing business—the “Start small” part. We are testing our early ideas in the Hub to learn what works, what doesn’t, how we can improve.

Every workshop we learn something that goes into the next one. Every workshop we add a few more things to try and test. New materials. New partners. Different technology. Each iteration adds something to the mix, increasing complexity. And sharing learnings as we go.