THE ROLE OF MAKERSPACES IN INCLUSIVITY IN ENGINEERING

Abstract

The University of Ottawa Faculty of Engineering is home to multiple rapid prototyping facilities and entrepreneurship spaces. These include a makerspace, a machine shop and a design space for any student to use free of charge. First- and second-year students also take courses in the Makerlab, a sister facility to the Makerspace, which introduces them to collaborative project-based learning, engineering problem-solving and prototyping in a cornerstone design course. Maker communities and makerspaces are known to be inclusive, welcoming and low-risk, high-reward environments. The objective of this paper is twofold: the first is to understand how strongly engineering students feel included in the making and engineering communities how those feelings vary as a function of different factors, and the second is to see if intervention through engineering design improves inclusivity. This analysis was done with Kruskal-Wallis tests. Factors considered were gender, year of study, program of study and country of origin. A baseline test was done at the beginning of the semester with the students using two different perceived group inclusion tools. A second test was then done at the end of the semester to determine if feelings of inclusion had changed.