Critical Making at York and Beyond: The School of the Arts, Media Performance and Design (AMPD) Makerspace

Description

The Maker movement is a community-based movement that utilizes new, emerging and accessible technologies to make things and create solutions addressing a wide range of needs, problems and goals.  At York, this growing culture is reflected in the increase in studio spaces and laboratories with ‘makerware’ technologies like 3D printers, laser cutters and digital fabrication devices, as well as curriculum that increasingly emphasizes collaborations, learning-by-doing and critical self-reflection through iterative processes of discovery.

At AMPD, merging technological exploration with the Arts is central to a STEAM (STEM + Arts) based education and classroom EE strategies.  This initiative therefore proposes the inauguration of a pan-faculty AMPD Makerspace that would improve current standards of student access to fabrication tools, and further integrate these technologies into current and upcoming programs.  A centralized workspace for technological experimentation and cross-disciplinary making, the AMPD Makerspace will provide our students with the necessary tools to translate their imagination into successful projects.