DESIGNING, TESTING AND ADAPTING TO CREATE A DISTRIBUTED LEARNING PROGRAM IN OPEN DESIGN AND DIGITAL FABRICATION

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education is perceived as difficult and many students either do not choose or give up studying these subjects. NEWTON is a large European Union project which develops STEAM content and innovative solutions for technology-enhanced learning, validating them with diverse audiences, which include primary, secondary, university and special learning students in pilots deployed in multiple locations across Europe. These technologies includes digital fabrication tools in conjunction with different learning approaches as self-directed, game-based and problem-based learning methods to increase learner quality of experience improving learning programs.

This paper describes a small-scale pilot labeled Fab Lab STEAM leaded by CEU University and deployed at Madrid based CEU Montepríncipe School, that will be also run at St. Patrick's School in Dublin (Ireland) and Liceo Scientifico G. Da Procida in Salerno (Italy) in a second stage. It targets the use of a digital fabrication laboratory for STEAM education as a support tool for students to test remote access to digital fabrication facilities and effectiveness of the Fab Lab to develop among students problem solving, bringing emotion and motivation into activity designs and raising their interest for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.