Youth Programs and Makerspace
Youth have a second place to call home in our youth programs and makerspace
Robotics
Our robotics program accepts all comers at whatever stage they are in their mastery journey through this growing industry.
Young roboticists will learn concepts of mechanical -and industrial design, and practical skills in manufacture. While these are marketable skills and knowledge that contribute to a youth's resume, it is an unforgettable experience for a young person to bring a robot from idea to concept, then to design and implementation. The ultimate victory is to create a breakthrough industrial design, market to a target audience, and produce a revenue stream through unit and bulk sales.
In this robotics program, we guide all participants who want to challenge their creativity and dexterity through the entire product life cycle.
Makerspace
Our makerspace is a do-oacracy. Ie. where there is work to be done and you are in the makerspace, you are the best person to get it done.
Young makers will use the space and its tools to create items for their own use and/or for sale. Our retail outlet is Etsy, famed for being a high-volume sales channel for all things made in spaces like ours.
Underlying the projects that young makers will complete here is the one project that all space users will have on the their project list: make the space better. Sometimes, that's the very important task of clean up. Other times, it may be to perform maintenance on a piece of equipment or to create a tool holder for the cleat wall because someone donated a useful tool. Every todo is a learning opportunity and a chance to be a maker.
Software Engineering
There is overlap between the robotics program and this software engineering program in that they both involve the writing of code that controls computers.
However, this youth software engineering program provides young software engineers the chance to work in the same way that professional software engineers collaborate to ship production-ready software. Ie. using current technologies such as Javascript, Python and the host of related/supporting technologies that make possible the range of simple applications like about-pages through to data-intense applications that catalogue products & services, process payments and allow real time analytics for business management and growth.
Music
In this program, young musicians master music theory & performance through careful analysis and reproduction of readily available music on instruments we have on hand, eg. guitars, keyboards, and percussion.
We learn to read and write music, improvise, to solo and, where the young musician's inspiration is unbounded, to compose grammy-award winning pieces that may be recorded on our recording and performance system.
Art is meant to be shared so we publish our young musicians' performances on public streaming services such as youtube and spotify.