CRAFT@Large: Building Community Through Co-Making
Yiran Zhao, Maria Alinea-Bravo, and Niti Parikh

TL;DR
This paper presents CRAFT@Large, an inclusive initiative at Cornell Tech that fosters long-term, equal co-making collaborations between community members and academic makerspaces to strengthen intercultural and intergenerational exchange.
Contribution
It introduces a novel approach to community engagement in academic makerspaces by involving community members as long-term, equal co-makers rather than occasional visitors.
Findings
Community members participated as long-term co-makers.
Academic makerspaces served as hubs for sustained community engagement.
Long-term collaborations enhanced intercultural and intergenerational exchange.
Abstract
CRAFT@Large (C@L) is an initiative launched by the MakerLAB at Cornell Tech to create an inclusive environment for the intercultural and intergenerational exchange of ideas through making. With our approach, we challenge the traditional definition of community outreach performed by academic makerspaces. Existing academic makerspaces often perform community engagement by only offering hourly, one-time workshops or by having community members provide a problem that is then used by students as a project assignment. These approaches position community members as occasional visitors and non-equal contributors, which not only conflict with the core values of co-creation but also limit the makerspaces' impact on connecting the universities and the communities. C@L explored an alternative approach in which we invited community members as long-term and equal co-makers into the academic…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInnovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
