Public Policy & Administration 597M - ST- MakerspaceLeadership&Outr

This course is designed not to provide new instruction but to provide students an opportunity to design, develop, test, implement, manage and lead an outreach "makerspace" project and workshop targeting middle- and high-school youth. While there is some opportunity for creativity on what the project is about, in many cases they may focus on open source environmental sensing technologies built on Arduino microcontrollers, 3D design and printing applications, or projects related to "smart cities" and the management of public problems and services. The final deliverable will be implementing a workshop on one weekend or across multiple weekends at a local nonprofit organization in Amherst, Holyoke andor Springfield. The maker projects and workshop outreach ideas will be proposed by the student teams at the beginning of the semester working in conjunction with the instructor and other interested collaborators. An underlying goal would be to develop a program that might inspire students about the promise of technology for solving problems facing humanity and inspiring low-income and diverse students into the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) pipeline.