I think if I was forming a new makerspace, I would not have so many required classes.
I may have a general one over the entire space as part of an orientation and basic safety.
Then as part of the project classes, I would teach safety. Once they go through one of the project classes, they can use the tool. There would be no independent required classes for each or group of tools. I don’t mind paying to learn a project. I do mind to have to double pay just to use a tool and potentially pay all over the space without something more included.
We have a few project/safety classes, for example, woodshop. But really it is still a safety course.
Safety should be taught in every class. If you want honorarium or payment, you have to teach safety.
I also think I would have staff that could supervise and walk around helping people.
Hot work safety is about an hours worth of material. No-one wants that tacked onto every project class.
If you consider that most people can’t focus more than an hour and a half, teaching the hot work safety and then doing a welding machine side safety with a project included would be an 6 hour class and we’d only be able to train the 8 people.
Instead, in those same 6 hours we can do 3 times as many people and get them both safety and the machine side safety and have them run a bead on a plate. (our current method is 1 giant safety class with 2 or 3 separate machine side classes).
Unless we get more welding areas, and more teachers, we’ll keep doing it the way we’re doing it
I went to college for welding. They did not spend an entire evening teaching about safety.
They taught some basic safety and then got in there and we started practicing.
We learned safety as we progressed and the reasons why do it a certain way became apparent.
I took welding in college, too. But a key difference is that our practicing there was closely supervised, unlike a typical makerspace environment. It’s not a fair comparison.
This is a big deal right here. Including the safety in a project class only makes sense if people take one project class per area and then move on. I suspect the folks that take project classes are likely to take more than one per area but I don’t have any actual numbers. This would be interesting to see actual data on.
This is not comparable at all to anything at DMS. A semester hour is 15-16 hours of actual instruction or lab time. Most classes are 3 semester hours or more so that’s 45-48 hours or more of time in the class. Even if you took all of the classes DMS has on any topic you’re nowhere near that amount of time with an instructor. We’re also taking into account the lowest common denominator, anyone from the public with any background, unlike colleges where people are paying a lot more to be there specifically to learn that subject and they’ve already proven at least some level of competence. That vastly complicates things.
I think it’s important to keep in mind what we’re really asking of people in the big picture. We’re asking for minimal training by any standards imaginable. I think anything less than what we’re already doing would be reckless. I know it sucks to have to wait for classes (sometimes for months) and spend more time and money on something you might already know but all things considered it’s working remarkably well for the organization. Though there’s always room for improvement.
I encourage @Draco or anyone else reading this to look at starting another makerspace if that’s what they think is best. More competition only serves to improve the situation for individual makers. I might even join.
Thank you for ya’lls comments but this thread is all about a new makerspace and not dms. It is in the very first sentence. I’m sorry if it was confusing.
Have you taught hour and a half classes and worked in the safety portion? I invite you to teach Laser Basics as part of a project class. In my experience teaching and taking classes at the space, after 90 minutes, things drag.
That is very true. @dougemes came up with an interesting idea about using an online/video with test approach that happens before you can register. You have to have a book understanding of the basics and then get the practical in the beginning of the class. This may not work with all areas but it could work with some areas. I believe 3d fab has an online course. It also has the added feature of having review courses available later.
Most courses don’t allow self-enrollment. Didn’t see how to address that??
(Web pages must have been done by a Brit since UK spelling with enrol and enrolment are used throughout.)
