Authored by Lauren White, Alison Buxton and the Maker{futures} team, Colin Paterson, Dan Goodley
In collaboration with our student co-researchers at Greenacre School
“When you’re making something, the object you create is a demonstration of what you’ve learned to do…the opportunity to talk about that object, to communicate…to tell a story about it [and] at the same time [to] teach others.” (Dougherty, 2012: 12-13).
As we come to the end of our project, we reflect on some of the big questions relating to TAS and their place in the lives of disabled young people. Namely, the co-production and makerspace methods that we have adopted have reframed these questions and considerations. The design and development process is a crucial component to conversations, and research, on trustworthy autonomous systems (TAS). For us, it is important to consider who is involved in the design and development stages of TAS. In particular, our project has worked to move disabled young people from being positioned as ‘end users’ of technology, who are rarely consulted in studies of TAS, to designers and makers of technology.
The Sheffield team and our project partners, Maker{Futures}, worked their magic to move us from work package one of our project ‘Imagining TAS’ to our disruptive and exciting second work package that also forms part of our project title, ‘Reimagining TAS’. In this blog post, we’ll explain the structure and role of Maker{Futures}, the power of the process and the creation of prototypes with our young co-researchers at Greenacre School and finally, what this means for the research agenda and development of TAS going forward.
Maker{futures} is an educational programme that provides children and young people with creative skills, knowledge and habits to make and mend things using tools and materials. The programme of work is part of a larger, international body of work called ‘the maker movement’ (Dougherty, 2012). For our project, we held three workshops with Maker{Futures}. In workshop one, we introduced ourselves. Part of our introductory work to developing our making mindsets involved sharing things we had made that we were proud of, as well as sharing the things we find challenging and need help with, celebrating that we all have different skills and abilities and teamwork strengthens our capacities and our interdependencies. Our affirmative and capacity focused ‘Robots rules’ and ‘Lollypop traffic light system’ were evidence of this where there was an emphasis on teamwork, collaboration, and supporting others when needed. Our second makerspace workshop also gave time to think through ideas, collectively discuss and begin to design. Not only did this enhance research relationships and collaboration, but instilled confidence in our co-researchers to imagine themselves with particular skill sets and see themselves as designers.
Finally, we got to making. Our student co-researchers worked with each other and a range of maker materials and tools to consider what their role as a maker of technology might be. The projects emerged and developed as the students explored the possibilities of electronics, micro-computers and materials. By prototyping designs, they worked through the design and making process in an iterative way, asking critical questions, finding and sharing problems and trying a range of ways to solve them.
Importantly, the fan, the therapy chat-bot, the robot controlled tea tray and the messaging tool all had others in mind. The ‘finished products’ were perhaps manifestations of the positive culture of difference and care felt throughout the entire process and how the community of our co-researchers positively influenced the philosophy of design. Our student co-researchers were in tune with each other, with the academic team, the community, their family, and their friends. This collective working, culture, knowledge, and empathy with and for each other should be central to technological design and the direction of TAS and of course, central to co-production. What is noticeable is the community-oriented focus of our makers; not simply about making entities to serve one’s interests but to co-create prototypes that might serve the self and many others.
So, what does this mean for the TAS research agenda and the development of technology going forward? For us, the connections between makerspaces philosophies and practice could not be separated from the research processes of participatory design and co-production. This combination of co-researcher with, and to, co-maker brings participation to life in particular ways – not least in the co-fabrication of material realities, products and prototypes.
The quote, ‘Do you need a designer?’ as listed in our blog title, comes from one of our young co-researchers who, through the process of our makerspace workshops, recognised his skills in designing technology and effective communication of this through sketching, and how he could offer this forward to fellow teams. As we bring this project to an end, we ask the TAS community to respond to this question ‘Do you need a designer?’ and to centre, and offer a platform to, disabled young people in the conversations, design and production of TAS for a more inclusive future for all.
We think our project shows that our disabled young co-researchers have the skills and capacities to really give technology a {re}think and, a {re}make.
References and further information:
To find out more about Maker{futures} please visit their website via the following link: makerfutures.org
You can find out more about our makerspace workshops and our project as a whole by visiting our website via the following link: https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/reimagining-tas-dyp/home
References:
Dougherty, D. (2012) ‘The Maker Movement’, Innovations, 7(3), pp.11-14.