REFERENCES
i
“Creating Innovators: Why America's Education System Is Obsolete” by Erica Swallow. Last Assessed at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericaswallow/2012/04/25/creating-innovators/ on 22nd April 2013
ii
Last assessed at http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/news/2012/11/singapore-ranked-fifth-in-glob.php on 22nd
April 2013
iii
“Environment to blame for lack of drive, risk-taking: students” by Chua Yini
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/employers-believe-s%E2%80%99pore-students-lack-drive--heng.htmlLast Assessed
on 22nd April 2013
iv
NUS probing tweets with confidential patient info by Melissa Lin. Last assessed at
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/nus-probing-tweets-confidential-patient-info20130420 on 22nd April 2013
v
In response to the increasing frequency of disasters, humanitarian crises and challenges of poverty in Asia,
the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES) has established the Humanitarian Engineering Alliance (HEAL) to
support humanitarian initiatives in this region that we call home.HEAL plans to provide relevant engineering
training, rally the engineering community and collaborate with non-profit organisations, tertiary institutions
and engineering firms to address ground needs through appropriate engineering solutions. Last Assessed at
http://healsingapore.wordpress.com/ on 24th April 2013
vi
University degree 'worth less than some apprenticeships' by Nick Collins. Last Assessed at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9977310/University-degree-worth-less-than-someapprenticeships.html on 24th April 2013
vii
The Spark Program. Last Assessed at http://www.sparkprogram.org/ on 24th April 2013
viii
Brain-Compatible Learning by Jane Mc Geehan. Last Assessed at
http://www.greenteacher.com/articles/McGeehan.pdf on 22nd April 2013
ix
Design thinking is a way of solving problems through a human centric point of view. Last assessed at
http://designthinking.ideo.com/ on 22nd April 2013.
xi
It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and
finances.
xii
The Sustainable Living Lab operates a community prototyping lab at Bottle Tree Park (Yishun), through which
it provides makers with access to courses, tools, and community support to create products that promote
sustainable living in practice. It also creates upcycled products from bulk waste materials and manufactures
them in accordance with fair trade principles. Last assessed at
http://www.seassociation.sg/cos/o.x?ptid=5636&c=/ca3_sea/sea_directory&func=view&rid=44 on 22nd April
2013.
Makernites organized by SL2 are intended to introduce the public in a 4 hour hands on workshop on various
themes .
Figure 1 ( Source: Institute for the Future)
Figure 2 ( Source: United States Department of Labour)
Figure 3 ( Source: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, UK)
Figure 4: Qualities that IGNITE modules aim to inculcate
Figure 5 : Modules available that will cater to students diverse needs.
Figure 6 ( Source: businessmodelgeneration.com)
Figure 7 ( Makernite: Upcycle Cardboard Lamp poster)
Figure 8 ( Sustainable Living Lab at Bottle Tree Park)
Figure 9 : Makernite photos
Clockwise from top left :
1) Veera is showing the participants the different type of cardboards there are. He also teaches them
how to cut cardboard.
2) Participants being hands on by cutting the shape they desire for their lamp.
3) Sharing session in the dark illuminated by each of the group’s lamps
4) A happy photo of a group with their end product.
Figure 10 : Makernite photos
Clockwise from top left:
1. Veera showing the participants how to cardboard.
2. One of the finished lamps. Truly creative
3. Two brothers showing their lamp
4. The different lamps that participants came up with at the end of the session.
Survey results
Figure 10: Survey results from Makernite
Figure 11 ( Makernite group photo)
Testimonials From Participants of Makernite
Participants of Makernite: Apple, Tina and Meishi
( From left)
Initial product and their improved version
Apple:
I can never find the thing I truly wanted. Nothing from my imagination is ever found in stores, and
so, I began enjoying making things from scratch, from sauces and pie crusts to clothes…and now, my
crazy imagination has brought me up to this: Furniture.
Since last year, when the idea of creating my own furniture suddenly became obvious and cool, I
[had] already began sourcing around places where I could learn how to start.
Then I saw Makernite. And I got really excited. At that time, I was still thinking if I should go since
that week was a particular busy week for me. But I couldn't sleep thinking about all the things I could
make after going to this workshop! I couldn't sleep thinking about all the kind of people I would
meet there, because surely they'd be like me! They would all be creative people who want to create
things of their own!
I quickly checked with my 2 favourite colleagues, Tina and Meishi, whether they were interested,
and their enthusiasm just made me further excited!
So, we were there on Wednesday night, so happy that we'd be working as a group on our first piece
of furniture - a cardboard lamp! The space and ambience of SL Kampung was just perfect. The
organisers were all very friendly and made us feel super welcomed and relaxed. We also really
enjoyed the sumptuous vegetarian dinner they prepared for us!!
It was that night when Meishi and I saw the brilliance and talent of Tina. Her sketches were so
professionally and nicely drawn, we were totally blown away! Her sketches gave us a crystal clear
idea on how the lamp would turn out and how we should go about doing it.
We are an ambitious lot, and the original idea was already full of details that we could not finish in
the few hours that night, and we could only produce at best, a skeleton of it, hoping that others can
see that it was supposed to be an Effiel Tower. Haha! We saw what the other makers made and
understood another fact about lamps: that we should strive making the light patterns interesting.
By this time, with new knowledge of working with cardboard and lamps, we were all determined to
re-do our lamp, and so we did! Amrullah invited us back warmly, providing all the tools and space we
needed. Thank you so much! At the end of it all, we were so proud of our creation! We couldn't stop
showing it off. More than that, we created memories working together that we will never forget! We
seldom have chances to work together as a team in school, and now we know, we function really
well as a team! I'm so proud of our lamp and our team. We are all looking forward to creating more
interesting designs with different kinds of materials. Thank you organisers of Makernite for making
this happen!!!!
I taught English Literature and Drama in a workshop before I started work in MOE. We used a lot of
kinesthetic teaching and I really saw how students enjoyed lessons when it's done in this way. I
applied for English Literature in this school but got Geography instead. At first, I was like, "Now
what..." but in the end, I also used kinesthetic teaching in Geography. Students love that. They like
to move around, they like discussion, they like to create things. I really hope such teaching will
become mainstream one day. I think when classrooms have more interaction and hands-on creative
work, real learning takes place.
Tina:
Initial motivation to attend the makernite workshop was purely just to accompany Apple as she was
very interested in making the cardboard lamp. Therefore, we asked along our other close friend,
Meishi, along just hoping we would have fun learning something new.
My interest aroused when the crew presented the properties of cardboard and what we can do with
it. To my surprise, there are a lot of things we can made out of it such as furniture and lamp, thats
when curiosity set in.
Apple came up with the idea of Eiffel tower as the main concept. After some imagination, i felt that
it will be beautiful if the light is to shine out from the complexity of the design of the Eiffel tower.
We wasted lot of time planning and was left with little time in the making. We literally rushed out
the lamp. To be honest, I really felt depressed when we were asked to present our lamp together
with the other teams. Other teams had really good concepts and designs! I felt ours totally lost to
theirs. But I was glad we had fun at the workshop and that we learned something meaningful.
After a few weeks, I was extremely surprised when Apple informed us that out lamp was chosen to
be featured in myPaper( a local newspaper)! I was wondering why our lamp was selected when it
was not at all appealing compared to the others. That was when we got motivated to redo the lamp.
I spent time to draft out the concept again, now in more details and higher complexity than before.
The 3 of us spent our weekend in the kampung doing our newly designed Eiffel tower. The difficulty
of the new design is the cutting of small triangles that represents the complexity of the Eiffel tower.
The patterns cut out would also be where the light would shine through.
During the process, there were minor setbacks such as tearing of the cardboard but we were able to
come up efficiently with solutions for problems we encountered. We really worked well as a team!
All of us were really impressed with our final product. Though it's still not perfect, we are still proud
of ourselves for producing such a masterpiece. We received several compliments from friends and
people from the kampung. I have never felt this much accomplishment until today. We are definitely
looking forward for the newspaper article that our lamp are going to be featured in and if possible,
we would like to make more lamps in different designs and hopefully start a business out of it, since
we really enjoyed the whole making process and being together. Last but not least, our lamp is
named the Luminosity de Eiffel.
Initial Design by Apple, Tina and Meishi
Original design
Final Product after spending their entire weekend at the kampung
The Team
When a work lifts your spirits and inspires
bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look
for any other standard to judge by: the work
is good, the product of a master craftsman.
~ Jean de la Bruyere.
Melanie
The art of teaching is the art of
assisting discovery.
~ Mark van Doren
Siddarth
Once we believe in ourselves we can
risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous
delight, or any experience that
reveals the human spirit.
~ E. e. cummings
Amrullah