Abstract

The use of 3-D printers, cheap electronics, open source software and sensors are increasingly being adopted by researches to benefit their work in several ways such as making their own research tools, automating laborious tasks and speedily testing innovative ideas. This do-it-yourself approach (as opposed to buying expensive and specialised equipment) is referred to as the Maker Movement and can help to make research funding go much further as well as freeing researchers from monotonous tasks.

Two teams of student innovators, HackScience from Imperial College and Omni from the University of Bristol, have developed creative Maker Movement approaches and tools, initially to benefit their own research and learning. They are now being funded and supported via the Jisc Summer of Student Innovation programme to widen the uptake of these approaches and tools in the HE sector. One of the teams from imperial College has already identified potential impact where they brought together teams of engineering students and researchers in a “hackathon” – the student teams developed nine novel automated lab tools some of which can save a researcher up to three hours a day and hundreds of thousands of pounds.

 This workshop, designed for scientific researchers, is being run in partnership with Jisc and will allow the two student teams to present their approaches and tools and delegates will be encouraged to take part in an ideation session where they will bring manual processes from their lab and think about how to solve them. Delegates will be encouraged to evaluate the potential impact and benefits of the Maker Movement as well as identifying issues and barriers.

 By the end of the workshop, successful participants will be able to:

•            Critically evaluate the role of the Maker Movement in research.
•         Identify the range of time-consuming and inefficient research activities that can benefit from Maker Movement     methods and technologies.
• ·           Evaluate the potential impact and benefits of Maker Movement approaches and technologies in their own research     areas.
•          Create early looks like and possibly even works like prototypes for lab automation.
•          Formulate a plan for taking forward Maker Movement approaches in their own research.

Dr Mark J.P. Kerrigan: Director of Learning & Teaching (FHSCE) – Anglia Ruskin University

Ali Afshar and Ignacio Willats: HackScience 

Ed Cooper and Alex Michaels :Omni Invent