EAGER: MAKER: Enhanced learning through making by way of personalized content for animation and fabrication

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This project seeks to impact the process of learning through Making by investigating an approach that allows future Makers aged 5 to 10 years old to provide input to educators who develop creative and unique physical or digital products that appeal to other K-8 student populations. Through this research there is potential to provide better educational toys and artifacts that appeal to K through 8 students instead of the traditional educational products created through mass production. The idea that Making can support individualized educational products that are designed to the individual preferences of a child is exciting and novel. This research investigates the impact of personalized content originating from children as a means to promote play as a form of learning. This research investigates innovative interactive design tools as a way of learning-through-making. Also, this project assesses the efficacy of a museum Maker space and an afterschool program for working with educators and young learners. This project evaluates the impact of using hand drawings as a starting point to a complexly designed systems. Qualitative analysis using inputs from play-testing sessions held at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and afterschool programs will be used for comparison of the student populations. Designs and innovations using interactive software will enable novel Maker activities and empower broader audiences. The additional experiences for young learners to become involved with mathematical models and computational software tools that automate tedious and challenging design tasks is exciting and novel. The project expertly integrates Maker activities into an extensive engineering based learning environment in an informal way to expose and encourage the future STEM workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.