“Why are students important to us?

Maker Works has three bottom lines—People, Planet, and Profit. Students are an important part of the People side for us. Both of Maker Works’ owners, Tom and Dale, have a technology background, and feel strongly that every student should have strong STEAM skills. Unfortunately, “making” is a lot less common in schools than in decades past, and many students don’t have an opportunity to learn the tools, materials, and techniques that we feel can be an enormous asset wherever their future studies and jobs take them.

Why did we choose to support robotics in particular?

Tom is a past FIRST judge with an interest in robotics. Dale is a past FIRST mentor and has also worked in other programs using robotics for education. Robotics is a very rich field drawing on mechanics, physics, fabrication, electronics, software, and so on, in a way that can be very motivating for students. We think it’s a great way for students to apply what may have been purely academic knowledge to an exciting project, and even to spur their pursuit of knowledge and skills well outside the normal academics.

What does Maker Works get out of it?

As we said, one of our bottom lines is serving people, and serving FIRST teams goes directly to that bottom line. As a makerspace, we say our four value propositions are: access to tools, space to work, support/instruction, and community. The FIRST teams contribute to that community as well, bringing their skills, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn. Their presence adds greatly to our makerspace.

Why should other sponsors support FIRST teams?

If you have not watched the videos or visited a competition (and especially the pits) in person, you may not appreciate what amazing work these students are doing. These are hundred pound robots with often very sophisticated functions. If a wire is too thin, or a cross-piece not stiff enough, the robot won’t work—it’s a very real challenge. There’s a reason why the best employers and universities love seeing a FIRST experience on a resume—these are students that not only have worked together as a team to create a functional robot optimized for the task at hand, but have done so with professional values, good engineering, a concern for safety, and good sportsmanship. These are students that you’ll want to hire in a few years.

We’re extremely pleased to have the Dexter Dreadbots using our facilities.”

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