For a recent project for my writing class, I wrote about the maker movement. The maker movement is just starting to catch steam, but it is in my opinion what may be a shift towards a more creative culture. Whereas in the past, it used to take huge teams of highly specialized individuals to take a product to market (or even just to a prototype), digital fabrication and specialized tools, are making it easier than ever to build working prototypes. In this post I want to highlight some key aspects of the maker movement–as I believe it is a fantastic collaboration of both artistic and scientific creatives.
The maker movement could not exist without the internet. Not only is the internet great for teaching oneself new skills, but it is key to one of the major aspects of the maker movement as a whole–collaboration. Most “makers” share their plans openly over the internet, actually encouraging people to not only build their projects, but to actually improve their projects. One of the best parts of this concept is that their is no need to reinvent the wheel. If somebody has figured it out already, you can start designing where they left off–speeding up innovation.
Makers come in all shapes and sizes, and you certainly don’t have to be a computer hacker to consider yourself a “maker”. It is more of a mindset, an idea of learning, trying new things, and just figuring out how to do it yourself. The maker movement is proving to the world that normal people can build cool stuff.
Art and Science 