Join Dale Dougherty and Steph Piper, author of Make: Skill Seeker Maker Edition, for a talk on tracking your growth and leveling up your skills. In a world where there are an overwhelming amount of things to do, #Maker skill trees are the perfect way for #makerspaces and individuals alike to represent and identify maker skills, from learning a new tech skill like 3D printing to traditional handiwork like sewing. What if we could #gamify these parts of life and gain experience points for learning or doing something new? Skill Seeker does just that in a choose-your-own-adventure-style goal-setting guidebook.
Video games are famous for skill trees: A mechanism to visually see your progress, calculating your experience points and showing your level, unlocking badges and new abilities. Skill Seeker puts the concept of skill trees into real life. Featuring pathways to leveling up across 15 skill areas, including 3D modeling, #crafting, #electronics, #entrepreneurship, #metalworking, #robotics, and #woodworking.
Use powerful gamification techniques of badging and leveling to your advantage to motivate a new stage of growth in your chosen skill areas. Show off your Life XP (experience) score, a tally of every tile completed across key areas, plus a dashboard of progress for a birds eye view of your skill distribution. Are you more tech-skill focused, or well-balanced? Skill Seeker will identify your makeup, and chart a path toward whatever future you choose!
Steph Piper is a creative technologist and maker, and serves as the library makerspace manager at th University of Southern Queensland. She also runs Maker Queen AU, a small business creating beautiful soldering kits to inspire others to learn electronics skills, as well as the GlowStitch line of machine-sewable LEDs. Steph created the Party Button art installation, a cross walk interface designed to play party music that was featured at Curiocity Festival in Brisbane. She is based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.
