Given how we’re being swamped by all things digital, don’t you long for a life with more hands-on experiences? I’ve written about (and visited) ‘Maker Spaces‘ that have been popping up in cities.

If you need inspiration, check out Intel’s ‘America’s Greatest Maker’ series. It will blow your mind to see a movement picking up steam that had young people becoming inventors and ‘makers.’ It is a TV show (similar to ‘The Voice,’ or ‘America’s Got Talent’), and a resource for learning the basics with plenty of how-to videos.  Watch someone who did just that.

“Inventing is really cool, because you don’t need a factory, you don’t have to be a certain age… as long as you have the right tools, and the right people to seek out.”  Shubham Banerjee, Maker

Also worth looking at is a fellow named Paulo De Souza who came up with the idea of equipping ”bees with backpacks” – um, tiny sensors. He has been addressing one of the world’s biggest problems, a diminishing bee population –or ‘colony collapse‘ as scientists call it.

Another great space for the movement is Maker Faire at Makerfaire.com

From Art, and Arduino, to Fashion and Robotics and everything in-between, this annual festival has been instrumental in getting people to go out into their garages and tool sheds and discover their creativity. Like our ‘STEAM’ activities, but even beyond it, this it’s a fascinating trend!

There was a time when we did repair our own shoes (which lasted almost a decade), and build our own tree-houses (instead of ordering one from Walmart). There is a maker in each one of us, paralyzed by our fixation on apps and shiny new objects.