Maker culture

The subculture stresses a cut-and-paste approach to standardized hobbyist technologies, and encourages cookbook re-use of designs published on websites and maker-oriented publications.

Maker culture emphasizes informal, networked, peer-led, and shared learning motivated by fun and self-fulfillment.

[5] Maker culture encourages novel applications of technologies, and the exploration of intersections between traditionally separate domains and ways of working including metalworking, calligraphy, filmmaking, and computer programming.

Maker culture is seen as having the potential to contribute to a more participatory approach and create new pathways into topics that will make them more alive and relevant to learners.

In reaction to the rise of maker culture, Barack Obama pledged to open several national research and development facilities to the public.

[9] The term, coined by Dougherty, grew into a full-fledged industry based on the growing number of DIYers who want to build something rather than buy it.

Spurred primarily by the advent of RepRap 3D printing for the fabrication of prototypes, declining cost and broad adoption have opened up new realms of innovation.

[12][13] Some notable hackerspaces which have been linked with the maker culture include Artisan's Asylum,[14] Dallas Makerspace,[15] Noisebridge, NYC Resistor, Pumping Station: One, and TechShop.

The federal government has started adopting the concept of fully open makerspaces within its agencies, the first of which (SpaceShop Rapid Prototyping Lab) resides at NASA Ames Research Center.

[18] Outside Europe and the US, the maker culture is also on the rise, with several hacker or makerspaces being landmarks in their respective cities' entrepreneurial and educational landscape.

More precisely: HackerspaceSG in Singapore has been set up by the team now leading the city-state's (and, arguably, South-East Asia's) most prominent accelerator JFDI.Asia.

Lamba Labs in Beirut is recognized as a hackerspace where people can collaborate freely, in a city often divided by its different ethnic and religious groups.

This, combined with the open source movement, initially focused on software, has been expanding into open-source hardware, assisted by easy access to online plans (in the cloud) and licensing agreements.

Programmable microcontrollers and single-board computers like the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, and Intel's Galileo and Edison, many of which are open source, are easy to program and connect to devices such as sensors, displays, and actuators.

Autodesk's Fusion 360 is free for start ups and individuals, and Onshape and Tinkercad are browser-based digital design software.

[27] With the advent of low-cost digital manufacturing it is becoming increasingly common for scientists as well as amateurs to fabricate their own scientific apparatuses from open source hardware designs.

[36] Free People, a popular clothing retailer for young women, often hosts craft nights inside the doors of its Anthropologie locations.

[38] Tool kits for maker cosmetics can include beakers, digital scales, laboratory thermometers (if possible, from -20 to 110 °C), pH paper, glass rods, plastic spatulas, and spray to disinfect with alcohol.

[39] The concept of homemade and experimental instruments in music has its roots prior to the maker movement, from complicated experiments with figures such as Reed Ghazala and Michel Waisvisz pioneering early circuit bending techniques to simple projects such as the Cigar Box Guitar.

Organizations such as Zvex, WORM, STEIM, Death by Audio, and Casper Electronics cater to the do-it-yourself audience, while musicians like Nicolas Collins and Yuri Landman create and perform with custom made and experimental instruments.

While still living at home Hugh Le Caine began a lifelong interest in electronic music and sound generation.

"[58] The Maker movement galvanized in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with participants initially directing their skills toward designing Open Source ventilators.

[60][61][62] National movements emerged in Germany, Brazil, Romania, France, Spain, India, and the United Kingdom.

A person working on a circuit board at a Re:publica makerspace
A Silicon Valley billboard advertising hackspaces and encouraging the viewer to "Invent"
Double Union, a maker/hackerspace in Potrero Hill , San Francisco
Dancers at a Disco party in East Germany in 1977. Due to the constant scarcity of consumer goods in the then socialist part of Germany , particularly more exotic fashion items like Disco wear, people often sewed them themselves or had friends who could do it for them.