#labmiami

One of my first impressions when I walked into the LAB Miami space five weeks ago was that in Ghana and Nigeria, some people, contractors and civilians alike, might consider this an uncompleted building. Some of the interior walls are not painted, the lighting wires are visible and the air-conditioning tubing is exposed. Spaces like that are far and few between in Ghana. Not because air conditioning is a luxury, but because they would be considered incomplete, lacking the necessary finishing. Usually, if a building is left unfinished, we assume it is because the owner is yet to come up with the money to finish it.

 So why the cultural commentary? I think it highlights one of the things I've been learning about vision, strategy, team, and leadership throughout my internship experience. It’s simple, really. Almost none of these are fixed, rather they are always morphing in order to move the organization forward. Consider the example of the camp's team.

A quick glance at the Wynwood Maker Camp website reveals head-shots of the six core team members of the organization. However, students and recent graduates with an interest in technology and education are inherently attracted to the agenda of the camp. Up to four interns, myself included, are currently working on promotional videos, article writing, lesson planning, curriculum design, monitoring and evaluation, and general camp counseling. This arrangement has benefited the organization well, adding valuable human capital at little cost. This is a point that Blake Mycoskie emphasizes several times in his book Start Something That Matters.

In addition, two Maker Ed Americorps Vista members recently started working at the LAB. They are here to support the growth of MIAMADE, the parent organization of the Wynwood Maker Camp. Specifically, they will be focusing on community outreach and funding sources. The timing is perfect. This week, we were visited by the principal of Gibson Public Charter School in Overtown. Partnership with Gibson could be an opportunity to continue bringing maker education to the community beyond summer.

Thanks to Jessica Peralta, tfa intern for reminding me to attend this amazing event last week!!! Congrats to all the participants as I loved the projects!!! The purpose of this event was for students that completed the WynCode Coding Bootcamp to showcase one of their projects!!! One student from the cohort was selected for a job opportunity with a major tech company in South Florida!!! My favorite project  was Meme Menu where this app would give you an image of the food on the menu of a restaurant!! Shout out to Diego, also a TFA/Wyncode Intern for a great job with the event. Check out www.wyncode.co for additional information about this startup!!

Wynwood Maker Camp is a two-week camp for elementary and middle school students. It is designed to introduce students to computer science and cutting-edge technology in order to encourage them to become “makers.” It is an initiative of MIA Made, a non-profit organization that aims to foster a maker culture in Miami. “Sounds Great. But what exactly is a maker?” I wondered.

When I was in middle school in Syria, I had an English teacher who always encouraged us to replace general words such as “happy” with more descriptive synonyms such as “joyous,” “ecstatic,” or “grateful.” I imagined “make” would fall in the former category and decided to engage in this quick mental exercise and brainstorm some synonyms. Create. Design. Invent.  Innovate. Build. Mold. Construct. Maker Education empowers people to do all these things by equipping them with the skill-sets and technology to craft something that was not there before. 

This is exactly what is happening at Maker Camp. At first glance, it may look like a bunch of students doing whatever they want to. Don’t fret yet. This is a good thing. On further inspection, I realized that that nine-year old is actually a virtual architect. He is interested in designing and building houses on Minecraft. Similarly, one of the middle school students had designed a 3D model of a boat using Tinker Cad software and I had the pleasure of watching his creation literally come to life in a 3D Printer.

  As a teacher, what excites me most about Maker Camp is that the learning is student-driven. This is so critical for STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). In the first week of the camp, the students are taught mini-lessons on all of the technology available to them. In the second week, they decide what they want to explore further and it becomes their maker project.

For the next six weeks, I will be working with the Maker Camp team to codify some of the learning experiences of the camp into a curriculum. The goal is to make it easy to implement so that, even with limited resources, students can be taught and can explore the basics of computational thinking and maker culture.