STEAM Camp Operations Manual

Goal Clarity

1. The Open Source Microfactory STEAM Camp is not an end in itself. It is only a beginning. One participating in all the exercises will only scratch the surface of possibility, but getting real proficiency means that the person will continue developing their skills in applied projects that solve pressing world issues by global collaboration. The questions for each participant to ask are:

What matters is what participants do with the knowledge. Does a participant take the knowledge and bootstrap to a small microfactory to produce 3D printed parts?

1. 1. Does a participant join and contribute actively to the Open Source Everything Store - a meeting that happens every Saturday for 1 hour as we coordinate development on tangible products?

Expectations

1. Camp is an experimental and learning camp. Are you comfortable problemsolving - so if things do not work you retain your composure? Well, you cannot build a 3D printer, a pen plotter, a CNC hole drill, your own Arduino from scratch - while learning collaboration, wiki, FreeCAD, Inkscape, and KiCad basics and not running into a single problem that you will have to troubleshoot. Come expecting that you will have to figure out and make work a large number of things that will not work on the first try. That is how you learn. You need to survive a rapid and chaotic learning environment, which also involves team play with other people in your learning.
2. In the worst possible case - your printer may not even work. To date, we have had a (4/5, 4/4, 5/5, 1/1,
3. What one gets out of it is how much one puts into it.

Roles

This applies to STEAM Camps - and other Open Source Microfactory Startup Camps - which are a natural evolution of the STEAM Camp. This similar protocol applies to Incentive Challenge hackathons, where focus is on self-learning from prepared instructions.

Each event should have a:

1. Curriculum Team - who provides detailed curriculum, and a Critical Path for each day down to the hour, with window of opportunity timing. The Window of Opportunity timing works on the principle that everything is documented in detail.
2. Dedicated documentation team. Documentation Team Training
3. A dedicated video team. Collaborative Video Editing Training.
4. AV team - makes sure 100 Mb+ internet is in working order and ready for continuous broadcasting with screens to other locations. This is largely for setup, including trasfering operating instructions to participants if the AV person is not available for the entire event. AV Team Training
5. A quality control person - person dedicated to verifying progress and keeping a paper document verifying the state of a build
6. A collaboration incubator / workflow manager - a person who actively assures that people are allocated to available tasks, and that people done are quality controlled, and that the first quality controlled person makes themselves available for helping the next person.

Onboarding

For instructors:

1. Participate in an Open Source Microfactory STEAM Camp as an Insructor in Training. Apply by filling out an Instructor in Training Application.
2. Take the Instructor Exam for the 3D printer. And the Instructor Exam for a 10 minute Inkscape exercise for plotting, a 10 minute KiCad exercise for milling, and a 10 minute Arduino exercise for building a functional arduino to control a large load.
3. Participate at a

Instructor Lessons Form

At the end of each STEAM Camp, each instructor writes a report of what worked, what didn't, and how they can contribute to fixing those issues for the next event.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BAk3EliItOZ5p57K86a64U7AzYpxO309kmJHUqySsWs/edit

Links

• Samuel Garson