#stem makerspace

You have added a lot of materials and devices to your STEM or Makerspace program. Students and staff are getting more adventurous and creative so materials are getting used more often which is a good thing. However, it can get expensive to maintain. How do you keep your program running at a high level without much of a budget?

One of the high costs in a program can be batteries. If students are using battery powered tools, you may be replacing batteries weekly or even more often. Here are some ways to help with battery costs: Be sure to teach students to be frugal and turn off battery-powered equipment when not in use. Buy rechargeable batteries when possible. The initial cost is higher, but it will save a lot of money in the future. Buy AC/DC converters for items that can use them. There is the up-front cost which is higher, but it will save money in the future. If you get AC/DC converters, you may also want to get power strips. 

Be sure to impose constraints. Constraints not only help conserve materials, but they also increase creativity. Limiting the amount of expensive materials available can give more students opportunities to work with them. 

Take apart and recycle materials as often as possible. Often pipe cleaners, craft sticks, pom poms, etc. can be removed and used again. Be sure that students have photos or videos of their projects for posterity. 

To ensure materials are available, use and care cannot be ignored or skimped on. Be sure that you spend a lot of time on how students need to take care of materials. Spend time on how to take inventions and projects part to save materials. Students sometimes get to rambunctious in taking things apart that materials get destroyed in the process. Revisit use and care often. 

It can get expensive to provide tape and glue or other consumable adhesive products. Look at getting tools such as Strawbees and Makedos to connect items without using consumable products. Think about how to use rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, velcro, and other non-consumables, too. 

Look for business donors. For example, offices, hardware stores, and craft stores may have partially used items available to donate.Have students write letters requesting donations. Example, craft store has a class that uses glue sticks. After the class is done, they can’t sell the glue sticks but may donate them to your program. Home Depot also does a lot of classes that may have some left-over supplies to donate. 

A great STEM activity is the Create a _________ activity. There are a lot of variations on how to construct the activity, but the underlying premise is the same. 

First, you need to have some sort of small collection of random materials. (These should all be consumable/recyclables.) Examples: a toilet paper tube, bottle caps of various sizes, straws, bread tags, yogurt cups, corks, bubble wrap, etc. You want to have the materials be the constraints. The collection of materials should be hidden and not visible in the container. 

One idea is to have students collect things from home in a paper lunch bag to bring in. They can’t label it with their names, and the bags must all look alike. Be sure to have some available for the students who may forget or have students work in pairs or small teams. 

Now for the challenge! You can have a variety of cards and have students draw a card to see what they should create. It is better to have the challenge to be more verb based than noun based. Examples: Create something that can help with homework, create something that can fly 6 inches, create something to hold your pencils on your desk, etc. You can also do challenges like: Create a cocoon for a caterpillar. Of course, everyone could also have the same challenge.

Have students choose a random bag of items. This is what they can use to create their challenge. 

Decide what free materials students can use. Examples: tape, glue, string, paper. You may limit those with constraints, as well. “You can use 12 inches of tape.”

Can students trade objects from their bags? If so, how many trades are allowed? (You may have trade cards for them to use. When they have used their cards, they can no longer trade.)