Resources

“Fab Lab Connect is a platform that brings resources to technology innovators from the digital Fabrication Lab community to take them to the next level, whether creating startups or scaling up their solutions for social change. It is part of a movement initiated at MIT and driven by a community of over 1,750 Fab Labs in 109 countries sharing technology, innovation and fast prototyping to address global issues and locally fabricate solutions.”

Fab Lab Connect is a global technology innovation platform for social change and entrepreneurship. A bridge between innovators and sponsors.

Resources for STEAM

The Benefits of STEAM

BACK TO TOP

Project-Based Learning and STEAM

BACK TO TOP

STEAM-Powered Projects and Programs

BACK TO TOP

STEAM Activity and Project Ideas

BACK TO TOP

Examples From Schools That Work

Edutopia’s flagship series highlights practices and case studies from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. Below, dive into a real-world example of STEAM in practice.

STEAM + Project-Based Learning: Real Solutions From Driving Questions

See how educators at Charles R. Drew Charter School in Atlanta, Georgia, integrate PBL and STEAM to empower third grade students to take ownership of their education as they prepare for the next Snowpocalypse.

Project Based Learning (PBL)

Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. In Gold Standard PBL, Essential Project Design Elements include:

  • Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills – The project is focused on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.
  • Challenging Problem or Question – The project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.
  • Sustained Inquiry – Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.
  • Authenticity – The project features real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact – or speaks to students’ personal concerns, interests, and issues in their lives.
  • Student Voice & Choice – Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.
  • Reflection – Students and teachers reflect on learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles and how to overcome them.
  • Critique & Revision – Students give, receive, and use feedback to improve their process and products.
  • Public Product Students make their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.

When transitioning to PBL, one of the biggest hurdles for many teachers is the need to give up some degree of control over the classroom, and trust in their students. But even though they are more often the “guide on the side” than the “sage on the stage,” this most certainly does not mean that teachers don’t “teach” in a PBL classroom. Many traditional practices remain, but are reframed in the context of a project.

Design & Plan   

    • Teachers create or adapt a project for their context and students, and plan its implementation from launch to culmination while allowing for some degree of student voice and choice.

Align to Standards    

    • Teachers use standards to plan the project and make sure it addresses key knowledge and understanding from subject areas to be included.

Build the Culture    

    • Teachers explicitly and implicitly promote student independence and growth, open-ended inquiry, team spirit, and attention to quality.

Manage Activities    

    • Teachers work with students to organize tasks and schedules, set checkpoints and deadlines, find and use resources, create products and make them public.

Scaffold Student Learning    

    • Teachers employ a variety of lessons, tools, and instructional strategies to support all students in reaching project goals.

Assess Student Learning   

    • Teachers use formative and summative assessments of knowledge, understanding, and success skills, and include self and peer assessment of team and individual work.

Engage & Coach   

    • Teachers engage in learning and creating alongside students, and identify when they need skill-building, redirection, encouragement, and celebration.

If you would like to edit this document to add or update anything, please contact [email protected] and you will be granted access to revise.

Why we have been giving startups the wrong advice for 30 years!

Startup Tools – Steve Blank

  1.  Startup Tools Click Here
  2.  Lean LaunchPad Videos Click Here
  3.  Founding/Running Startup Advice Click Here
  4.  Market Research Click Here
  5.  Life Science Click Here
  6.  China Market Click Here

How to Build a Startup

How To Build a Web Startup – The Lean LaunchPad Edition

Here’s the step-by-step process we suggest our students use in our Lean LaunchPad classes.

  1. Set up the logistics to manage your team
  2. Craft company hypotheses
  3. Write a value proposition statement that other people understand
  4. Set up the Website Logistics
  5. Build a “low-fidelity” web site
  6. Get customers to the site
  7. Add the backend code to make the site work
  8. Test the “problem” with customer data
  9. Test the “solution” by building the “high-fidelity” website
  10. Ask for money

(Use the Startup Tools Page as the resource for tool choices)

Step 1: Set Up Team Logistics

Step 2. Craft Your Company Hypotheses (use the Lean LaunchLab)

Step 3: Write a value proposition statement that other people understand

  • If you can’t easily explain why you exist, none of the subsequent steps matter.  A good format is “We help X do Y by doing Z”.
  • Once you have a statement in that format, find a few other people (doesn’t matter if they’re your target market) and ask them if it makes sense.
  • If not, give them a longer explanation and ask them to summarize that back to you.  Other people are often better than you at crafting an understandable value proposition.

Step 4: Website Logistics

  • Get a domain name for your company. To find an available domain quickly, try Domize or Domainr
  • Then use godaddy or namecheap to register the name. (RetailMeNot usually has ~ $8/year discount coupons for Godaddy You may want to register many different domains (different possible brand names, or different misspellings and variations of a brand name.)
  • Once you have a domain, set up Google Apps on that domain (for free!) to host your company name, email, calendar, etc
  • Read Learning how to code

For coders: set up a web host

  • Use virtual private servers (VPS) like Slicehost or Linode (cheapest plans ~$20/month, and you can run multiple apps and websites)
  • You can install Apache or Nginx with virtual hosting, and run several sites plus other various tools of your choice (assuming you have the technical skills of course) like a MySQL database
  • If you are actually coding a real app, (rather than for class) use a “Platform As A Service” (PAAS) like Heroku, DotCloud or Amazon Web Services if your app development stack fits their offerings
  • BTW: You can see the hosting choices of YCombinator startups here

Customer Discovery for the Web

Step 5: Build a Low-Fidelity Web Site

  • Depending on your product, this may be as simple as a splash page with: your value proposition, benefits summary, and a call-to-action to learn more, answer a short survey, or pre-order.)
  • For surveys and pre-order forms, Wufoo and Google Forms can easily be embedded within your site with minimal coding.

For non-coders:

For coders: build the User Interface

Step 6: Customer Engagement (drive traffic to your preliminary website)

  • Start showing the site to potential customers, testing customer segment and value proposition
  • Use Ads, textlinks or Google AdWords, Facebook ads and natural search to drive people to your Minimally Viable web site
  • Use your network to find target customers – ask your contacts, “Do you know someone with problem X? If so, can you forward this message on to them?” and provide a 2-3 sentence description
  • For B2B products, Twitter, Quora, and industry mailing lists are a good place to find target customers. Don’t spam these areas, but if you’re already an active participant you can sprinkle in some references to your site or you can ask a contact who is already an active participant to do outreach for you.
  • Use Mailchimp, Postmark or Google Groups to send out emails and create groups
  • Create online surveys with Wufoo or Zoomerang
  • Get feedback on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) features and User Interface

Step 7: Build a more complete solution (Connect the User Interface to code)

Step 8: Test the “Customer Problem” by collecting Customer Data

  • Use Web Analytics to track hits, time on site, source.  For your initial site, Google Analytics provides adequate information with the fastest setup.  Once you’ve moved beyond your initial MVP, you’ll want to consider a more advanced analytic platform (Kissmetrics, Mixpanel, Kontagent, etc)
  • Create an account to measure user satisfaction (GetSatisfaction, UserVoice, etc.) from your product and get feedback and suggestions on new features
  • Specific questions, such as “Is there anything preventing you from signing up?” or “What else would you need to know to consider this solution?” tend to yield richer customer feedback than generic feedback requests.
  • If possible, collect email addresses so that you have a way to contact individuals for more in-depth conversations.

Step 9: Test the “Customer Solution” by building a full featured High Fidelity version of your website

  • Update the Website with information learned in Step 5-8
  • Remember that “High Fidelity” still does not mean “complete product”. You need to look professional and credible, while building the smallest possible product in order to continue to validate.
  • Keep collecting customer analytics
  • Hearing “This is great, but when are you going to add X?” is your goal!

Step 10: Ask for money

  • Put a “pre-order” form in place (collecting billing information) even before you’re ready to collect money or have a full product.
  • When you’re ready to start charging – which is probably earlier than you think – find a billing provider such as Recurly, Chargify, or PayPal to collect fees and subscriptions.

For all Steps: Monitor and record changes week by week using the Lean LaunchLab

For Class: Use the Lean LaunchLab to produce a 7-minute weekly progress presentation

  • Start by putting up your business model canvas
  • Changes from the prior week should be highlighted in red
  • Lessons Learned.  This informs the group of what you learned and changed week by week – Slides should describe:
  1. Here’s what we thought (going into the week)
  2. Here’s what we found (Customer Discovery during the week)
  3. Here’s what we’re going to do (for next week)
  4. Emphasis should be on the discovery done for that weeks assigned canvas component (channel, customer, revenue model) but include other things you learned about the business model.

———

If you’re Building a Company Rather Than a Class Project

How to start a business:

https://www.udemy.com/lean-startup-sxsw-2012-videos-and-presentations/

https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup–ep245

 

Hardware startups:

https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/16/the-lean-hardware-startup-from-prototype-to-production/

https://blog.ycombinator.com/advice-for-early-stage-hardware-startups/

http://tech.co/hardware-startups-blogs-2016-02

 

Lean Startup:

https://hbr.org/2013/05/why-the-lean-start-up-changes-everything

http://theleanstartup.com/principles

 

Documents:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253997

 

Movies:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253997

 

Books:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/07/09/i-read-this-20-times-five-founders-pick-the-best-books-for-startups/#549ad181c0cf

 

Blogs:

http://www.businessinsider.com/24-must-read-blogs-for-entrepreneurs-2012-6

 

VC’s:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/10/23/venture-capitalists-every-startup-should-know/#298cfc196c97

 

People:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2014/12/17/50-startup-founders-you-need-to-follow-on-twitter/#512e49604b80

Web Design Tools:

Crowdfunding

Fab Lab

Crowdfunding Campaign Tools and Resources

Crowdsourcing is a testament to the power of collaboration. Hundreds and even thousands of individual efforts combine to create something world-changing. If you’re jumping into the chaotic world of crowdsourcing to fund your startup or passion project, you’ve got a lot of hectic days and coffee-fueled nights ahead. Running a successful campaign, standing out in a sea of creative projects, and coordinating all the moving pieces takes a lot of hard work.Use these tools and resources to stay on top of it all and start writing your own crowdfunding success story.
Step 1: Choose Your Platform

Learn more here…

Funding & Grant Opportunities 

Upcoming K–12 Grants

  • Community Action Grant

    Sponsor: AAUW
    Award: $2,000 to $10,000
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Dec. 1

  • Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards

    Sponsor: Vernier and the National Science Teachers Association
    Award: $5,500 in cash, products and travel expenses
    Number of Awards: 7 (one elementary, two middle school, three high school, one college)
    Application Deadline: Dec. 18

  • MicroGrant Program for Educators & Teachers

    Sponsor: Educators of America
    Award: Equipment (varies by request)
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Ongoing (quarterly:January, April, July, October)

  • Mobile Beacon Connect for Success

    Sponsor: National Education Association Foundation
    Award: Up to 25 laptops and 4G LTE hotspots with free 4G LTE high-speed Internet service for 12 months
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Ongoing (quarterly)

  • American Honda Foundation STEM Grants

    Sponsor: American Honda Foundation
    Award: $20,000 to $75,000
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Feb. 1 and Aug. 1 for new organizations; May 1 for returning organizations

  • NEA Foundation Learning & Leadership Grants

    Sponsor: National Education Association Foundation
    Award: $2,000 or $5,000
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Feb. 1, June 1 and Oct. 15 of each year

  • 2020 Engineering Contest

    Sponsor: Vernier
    Award: $1,000 in cash, $3,000 in Vernier technology, and $1,500 toward expenses to attend the 2020 National Science Teachers’ Association (NSTA) STEM conference or the 2020 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference
    Number of Awards: 1
    Application Deadline: Feb. 15

  • SparkFun Community Partner Program

    Sponsor: SparkFun
    Award: STEM/STEAM-related prize packages, event and team sponsorships and other types of support
    Number of Awards: Varies
    Application Deadline: Ongoing: third Thursday of each month; awards announced on the last business day of each month

  • SparkFun Community Partner Program

    Sponsor: SparkFun
    Award: STEM/STEAM-related prize packages, event and team sponsorships and other types of support
    Number of Awards: Varies
    Application Deadline: Ongoing: third Thursday of each month; awards announced on the last business day of each month

  • Adopt a Classroom

    Deadline: Ongoing

  • Brinker International Grants

    Deadline: Ongoing

  • Brown Rudnick Community Grants

    Deadline: Ongoing

  • Corning Foundation Grants

    Deadline: Ongoing

  • DonorsChoose.org

    Deadline: Ongoing

  • Michael & Susan Dell Foundation Grants

    Deadline: Ongoing
    Award: No more than 10 percent of an organization’s annual operating expenses or 25 percent of the total budget for the project being funded; awards have ranged from the hundreds to the millions of dollars.
    Number of Awards: Varies
    Qualification: Project should “directly serve or impact children living in urban poverty, particularly in the areas of education, family economic stability (including microfinance) and childhood health.”

  • Naiku Innovative Teacher Grant

    Deadline: Ongoing (approx. 10 awards per month)

  • Sony Grants for Education

    Deadline: Ongoing (grants awarded on a rolling basis)

  • TAF Project-Based Learning Grants for Grades 6–12

    Sponsor: Toshiba America Foundation
    Award: Two categories: Up to $5,000 and more than $5,000
    Number of Awards: Not specified
    Application Deadline: Up to $5,000 awarded on a rolling basis; Feb. 1 deadline for applications for more than $5,000

Call for Papers & Proposals

Upcoming Events

Editorial Webinars

Reference…