I recently came across an article on the Conversation by Matthew Bennett entitled “Augmented reality promises to rescue dying museums – so why don’t visitors want to use it?” After reading the article and reflecting on my own thoughts about technology and museums, I decided to write this blog post. A little background – in addition to […]

Read more "Engagement, not gimmicks – thoughts on technology and museums"

Note: This is a follow-up article to a list we published in 2016 called Five Fun Maker Valentine’s Day Ideas. We encourage you to check out that list as well (especially the tutorial for creating LED clouds). We believe that Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to focus on creating rather than consuming. Show the special people […]

Read more "Even more fun maker movement Valentine’s Day ideas"

This is a question we get from parents and educators fairly often – how do I help to create a fun, innovative, and affordable STEM fair for my school? Like everything with the maker movement, time, creativity, collaboration, and research can make amazing things happen. Here is some of our advice for creating a fun-conventional […]

Read more "Tips for creating an awesome STEM fair for your school"

Building a makerspace can be a lot like the television show Breaking Bad. You start with a noble intention, you work hard creating something new, you invest your own identity into the project, and before you know it you realize that you’ve ended up in a really bad place. While it’s true few people who want […]

Read more "#MAKING Time For Self Care – the Importance of Mental Health in Your Makerspace"

Here at the MakerBus we’ve been wanting to work on a cool maker movement bicycle project for a while – here are 6 awesome summer projects we found while researching our own bike transformation project. Transforming a bicycle into a custom t-shirt art maker If you’re going to build a cool maker bike, why not […]

Read more "Top 6 maker movement bicycle projects for a cool summer"

Let me make one thing clear – Spheros are cool. They have amazing potential to be used creatively by educators and can make STEM education more engaging for learners. With that being said, is anyone else starting to feel Sphero fatigue? At the MakerBus we follow a lot of different educators through platforms like Twitter […]

Read more "The Zero Sphero Makerspace – How to Avoid Creating a McMakerspace"

  As we’ve written before – kitchens are amazing makerspaces. If you’re looking some maker fun on a weekend, or during a Spring or Summer break, we highly recommend making time to experiment in your kitchen. Here are three super cool, relatively accessible projects to try in your kitchen: #MAKE Electricity Out of Fruits and […]

Read more "Play with your food: 3 cool maker projects you can try in your kitchen"

The other day we had a Skype conversation with two people in Israel who are considering building a mobile makerspace. They asked us if there were many mobile makerspaces in Canada and we realized that we didn’t actually know the answer. This post is our attempt to answer that question by creating a complete list […]

Read more "A list of mobile makerspaces in Canada"

We’ve done a lot of weird, wonderful, and wild things at the MakerBus. From attempting to break World Records, to staying up all night to meet a Mythbuster, to building a life-sized cardboard bus in Detroit, we’ve made a lot of maker memories over the years. In this past six months we’ve had two different […]

Read more "Check out our MakerBus publications"

With the MakerBus we’ve had the privilege of touring makerspaces in schools, libraries, and communities across North America. In chatting with people who have built makerspaces or are in the process of building a makerspace, we’ve noticed a natural trend – people want their makerspaces to be perfect. This means from the moment they open […]

Read more "A lesson you can learn from web development to create a successful makerspace"