Ideaspace engagement plan
We need to write an engagement plan to receive the next tranch of funds (£10000). It would be great to include all the ideas from the community. We hope to have this plan written by early November.
The plan needs to show how, during 2013, we'll engage 500 people, each for a total of 6 hours, around Makespace stuff. The engagement doesn't have to be in the space (although we'd expect a lot of it would be). The 6 hours don't have to be at once - it could be a series of 6 1 hour talks. We don't have to be supercareful about tracking the attendees but we will be trying to do this, so having a way of showing who's turned up for what will be necessary.
It would be good to gather ideas here, estimate number of people / hours that could be achieved with each, and flesh each out into a nice description that makes it clear what the activity would look like, who it would attract, and so on.
Bear in mind we'll be executing this plan later :)
Ideas at the meeting involved: maker faire, hosting robot wars, A Level school groups, "make it, fix it" events, instructables - do a simple task and document it (e.g. trebuchet from paperclips), Tedx cam, talks, discussion group
Contents
Engagement Formats
MakeSpace Members [approx 100 people]
Most will be doing STEM things for > 6hours over the year.
Day class events [approx 360 people]
eg 12 events per year, 30 people at each event
Weekend class events [approx 240]
eg 12 events per year,20 people, 2 days (eg 4 hours per day)
NightClass style course [approx 100]
- 1-2 hours per night course
- 6-10 events on same night each week over a few months
- 5 courses per year, 20 people per course
Organising
For each event, four main factors:
- What it is
- Who attends [age range, necessary experience]
- Who is running it - course designer, other presenters/enablers, additional staff (first aid, fire marshals, etc)
- How we publicise it (target audience, publicity method)
Publicity
- Schools
- Universities
- Local tech companies
- ... any more ideas?
Course Ideas
Please indicate course length, advertising, who will run it (append your name if you're potentially interested in running each course - doesn't have to be the original suggester).
Mini MakerFaire
- Course Length: 1 day drop in format
- Attendees: adults with an interest in making almost anything?
- People willing to run the course: MDC (please append your initials here and name at the end if you can help)
- Publicity:
Info:
- Faire where people setup stalls and show / demonstrate / sell their creations, by they crafty, techy or whatever!
- Past faires: Derby[1], Manchester[2] & Brighton[3],
- Many people (Possibly > 500 thoughout the day!)
- Unlikely many will be there > 2 hours, but still puts a dent in the 6 hours per person
- Good way to connect with broad community
- Also potential money-earner, selling tea, coffee, juice & cakes?
- Awesome fun :-)
Competitions
- Course Length: 1day / 2day
- Attendees: people with some previous building experience
- People willing to run the course: MDC (please append your initials here and name at the end if you can help)
- Publicity: ...
Info:
- Robot Wars-style event
- Possible if we use a lower weight class, e.g. 12.5kg
- Need arena to keep the audience safe (possibly use main area, and view from the gallery?)
- Micromouse (maze solving)
- We can supply robots for people to program or let them run their own
- Mbed/Pololu robot race
- Was run at ARM as part of their 21st birthday celebrations with local schools
- Could be extended to longer tracks or different criteria
- Robot Soccer
- Maybe not an easy one for beginners unless you allow remote control
- Soap Box Derby
- Needs a hill we can use. There are a few in Cambridge but we probably won't be able to close a road.
- Augmented Reality Hockey
- ARHockey [-- does this belong here? no other page previously linked to it...]
Courses
- Course Length: eg night class - 3 to 5 sessions of 2 hours each (same people at each evening)
- People willing to run the course: (please append your initials here and name at the end if you can help)
- Publicity: ...
Possibilities:
- Metalworking [lathe, milling, plasma torch]
- Welding
- Woodworking
- Plasticworking [laser / 3d printer]
- Make a radio controlled robot (us to supply some basic bits)
- Computer courses (programming, web development, databases)
- Interfacing computers to electronics
- Raspberry Pi stuff - loads we can do here including interfacing
- Introduction to electronics
- How to present your ideas for fun and profit [help geeky people pitch their stuff]
Flugtag / Birdman
"Getting started/Having fun with Raspberry Pi"
The Pi is after all supposed to be an educational tool. I'm sure we could create a 6-hour course to do some cool things. Bring your own Pi (detail of what you need to have) or use one of ours... Stuff like how to set up a development environment? Maybe build a few simple apps?
People willing to run courses
MDC: Mat Cook (electronics, interfacing, metalworking)
