Photo: Alexander Fife/Unsplash.
Innovation is often attributed to the research and development departments of corporate firms, academic institutions and other private and public sector research laboratories. But makerspaces are changing this notion by facilitating a community of people or ‘makers’ to innovate outside the rigid formal structures of science and technology institutions. These makers are interested in experimenting and creating new things by shaping their ideas into products.
Makerspaces are community-based workshops where people can access machines and tools required to design or make things. These tools could be both high-tech fabrication machines such as 3D printers, laser cutters and lathes or traditional tools like sewing machines, chisels and hammers associated with ‘low-tech’ crafts.
Makerspaces are known by a variety of terms,…
