Make: Projects is a problem-solving R&D platform where simple and complex DIY projects can be shared with, reviewed, and collaborated on with expert engineers and makers. With over 25,000 members and 8,000 projects ready to explore, the projects on Make: Projects often work towards addressing contemporary issues. In response to the current historic events of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many maker-led civic responses.
Local maker faires allow inventors to share their solutions in a public venue, but due to the pandemic, maker faires and maker spaces across the United States have cancelled. However, there is now a way for projects to live beyond local fairs. By moving online, engineers and makers are able to connect and share their projects, from DIY ventilators to designing a new component or toy. This space is all about projects and the people who are passionate in developing them.
In the initial stages, a project will certainly have scopes and requirements for further improvements; eventually, the project needs to stand on its own. With a foundation of technical values and engineering perspectives, Make: Projects is a platform that balances out a private space where personal innovation can take place, and the public value of a forum to showcase work and receive feedback from people with similar interests and knowledge.
In this context, the Make: Projects platform is an ideal place to combine talents simply and easily. Prospective makers, engineers, students, designers, researchers and doers of all ages can connect and effectively to contribute their skills, talents and knowledge.
A great project needs much more than just an idea. To be truly viable, a project must be:
- Engineered and technically feasible.
- Viable to market.
- Economically and financially rewarding.
- Socially approved.
- Passionate.
Ideas come prior to proposing formal projects, and expert knowledge in the above areas are necessary to create a finished project. A great example of this is how engineers are taking action on the maker-led civic responses to the COVID-19 crisis.
The Make: Projects platform offers an open forum discussing the pandemic, where several experts have given their reviews and the community continues to build towards solutions in maker spaces. Some of these include the Chicago Shield initiative, and building a DIY UV-Sterilization cabinet to eliminate the virus from masks and household items.
"Although these unprecedented times have created many new challenges, we are very excited about providing our new platform to schools, maker spaces and Maker Faires that have been adversely affected by the social distancing guidelines," said Frank Baldesarra, CEO of engineering.com. "COVID-19 is a major issue for many in our communities, and this is our small way of helping to keep the excitement and spirit of Making together, alive and thriving."
Make: Projects is most importantly a place for passion, which is one of the components for developing a project. Creativity, ingenuity and collaboration are the elements built within a project design, but without passion, most responses to social and human needs fail to achieve their noble goals.
This platform allows for discussion, working on design and implementation, and developing quality guidelines with a resource that always improves projects: collaborators.
Learn more about Make: Projects, and join the community today!
About Make: Community
Make: Community, producer of Make: magazine and Maker Faire, has been a catalyst for the global maker movement that is transforming the ways we learn, earn, and live in the 21st century. Our mission is to share the know-how of makers and showcase their projects online, in print, and through live events such as Maker Faire. Improving collaboration on projects will expand the capabilities of what people can produce and what problems they can solve.