Learning from toy makers in the field to inform teaching engineering design in the classroom

This paper explores the usefulness to leverage activities within the growing Maker Movement and outside of the traditional engineering enterprise to better understand what might be possible to bring back to the engineering classroom to improve teaching, learning and the potential impact of hands-on engineering activities. By focusing on specific Makers who are building "toys" in the Maker community, we aim to illuminate their experiences and building and prototyping mindsets to determine how this might be adapted to advantage design in the engineering classroom. This research is guided by a primary research question: (RQ1) What are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of toy Makers? We seek to be better informed of what is relevant for our cohort of toy Makers. It is of interest of how these items may overlap with similar questions about the activity of engineering design and for the community of engineering educators. Our findings inform a secondary research question: (RQ2) What can we learn from the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of toy Makers to advance teaching in the engineering classroom? Findings are presented to inform possibilities for design in engineering contexts and a multi-disciplinary, holistic attitude towards engineering education that is rising from discussions on the future of engineering education.