On Feb. 1, 11 student teams received Maker Hub Kickboxes and participated in a design thinking workshop to jump-start their projects.
Over the next few months, this handful of student innovators will create everything from apps to artwork, with help and guidance from the contents of their Kickboxes.
Last semester, a group of students, faculty and staff reviewed applications and awarded eleven Kickboxes to individuals and teams of students who proposed projects that could be completed in roughly three months’ time. Over the course of the spring semester, Kickbox beneficiaries will cultivate their projects, log their progress on project web pages, and ultimately present their work to the Elon community during Celebrate Week. They will also show off their projects at the Burlington Mini Maker Faire on April 23rd.
Each Maker Hub Kickbox is a literal box that contains tools and resources—including a $300 pre-paid Visa card—to transform each student project from a proposal to a reality. Students can allocate their funds to purchasing tools and materials, attending workshops, traveling to conferences, or anything else that helps them achieve their project goals. All tools purchased for Kickbox projects will be returned to the Maker Hub at the end of the semester to support future Elon makers. At the kick-off workshop, Maker Hub staff also encouraged Kickbox recipients to make use of the myriad of tools and materials (and fellow-maker moral support) in the Maker Hub.
In the spirit of taking advantage of all the Maker Hub has to offer, the Kickbox students participated in a design thinking workshop to gather peer input on their project designs. The design thinking process is an approach to problem solving. The goal of the activity was to introduce students to the design thinking concepts that are featured in the Kickbox and to give each innovator practice applying them.
Kickbox teams paired off to take turns interviewing each other and sharing stories about their respective projects. They brainstormed and posited suggestions to each other, and emerged from the workshop armed with new problem-solving ideas for their Kickbox projects. “It was really nice to be able to talk to someone who doesn’t know anything about your [project],” said Kickbox recipient Emmanuel Obi, “[because] those are the people who are going to be using your product.”
Check out a complete list of the Kickbox projects and descriptions here.