The Fab Play Maker Institute was easily the most practical and inspiring professional development opportunity I have had for identifying maker resources, engaging with other maker educators, and improving the quality of my instruction.

It was amazing to visit the Hawken School in Gates Mills, Ohio, which has hosted this event for the past seven years. Their unbelievable facilities include a fabrication lab, a woodshop, a robotics lab, a computational thinking lab, and a theatre props room. The school even built a cabin in their woods for outdoor education. The format was hands-on, where you could make any number of things with the tools they had laid out, and learn or review at your own pace. We had a show and tell on the last day, and each educator made at least ten different examples of things to take home. I learned about casting/molding to make plastic parts (and chocolate bars), pouring molten pewter to make coins, how to make a cardboard pinball machine, and even how to program with an Arduino. The staff was comprised of high school interns who taught us how to use all of the tools. The Spark sessions were times for attendees to share quick resources and ideas with the group. I chose to share about the Repair Clinic I did with third grade and got lots of positive feedback and questions about replicating it at other schools. It was amazing that one of the conference hosts, Anna Delia came to Burke's when they were starting their makerspace, and told the story how they learned to do a breakerspace (The Breakery) activity from Jennie Howland.

What I found most inspiring was the majority of tools (including the exact models/brands) of 3D printers, cricut cutting tools, and laser cutters were the ones we have procured at Burke's. While it was super impressive to see all the thinks their school is doing, I was reminded that they are a high school, and that we have many of the same tools available to our elementary and middle school age students. This workshop has refined the offerings I will have in Open Make, and has also inspired a clearer vision of how we can allow students to pursue individual maker "career" tracks of interest, such as fashion design, architecture, mechanical engineering, or green/sustainable materials. Their safety protocols were something I want to copy. I am so grateful for the teachers and school leaders at the Hawken School for opening up their spaces for questions, experimentation, and gifting so many amazing ideas freely with the maker community.