State of the Art of Makerspaces - Success Criteria When Designing Makerspaces for Norwegian Industrial Companies

Abstract

For supporting the selection of the setup of a new makerspace in Molde, Norway, a pre-study was conducted on the state-of-the-art of makerspaces in Norway and beyond. Data includes: observations and interviews at 13 makerspaces visits in Norway, Denmark and the US, interviews with 11 future users and 1 questionnaire (N=25) answered by members of 8 international makerspace communities.Besides identifying the state-of-the-art of makerspaces concerning Tools, Workspace design, Target group, Business models, Roles and Activities, User profiles and Stories we determined key parameters to consider when designing and evaluating a new makerspace. These covers: Activity and Usage, Creating a Community Feeling, and finally to what extend the makerspace manage to educate novel users in the literacies of a makerspace. In general, our paper contributes with applicable knowledge on implementation of prototype-driven behavior.