MAKING THE NEXT GENERATION OF MAKERS?

As a father of two boys, for years I’ve had a concept floating in my head for a franchised “maker lab for children”: A place to let kids have fun building and making while they get a chance to explore “the trades” such as construction, manufacturing, robotics, engineering and design.  Like a “Build a Bear” but for all the boys and girls who would rather be driving a bulldozer or programming a welding robot!

Now thanks to A.I. image generation, I can share my vision: A bright, bold, fun environment where kids can run free from station to station or follow prescribed “challenges” that they can choose. It would be highly kinetic with gliding overhead cranes, robot arms moving around, conveyor belts whirling, etc.  As if Caterpillar and Willy Wonka had a love child.  Mixing the warmth of wood floors and old beat-up wooden workbenches with high-tech robotics, factory workstations, toolcarts and power tools.

Sections could be divided for different age groups: A “workshop” for 3-5 year olds, a “factory line” for 6-9 year olds, and a “construction site” for 9-12 year olds.

The trick would to be use modern technologies to make everything feel “real” and “dangerous” while being totally safe for free-roaming kids. For example, a welding robot might use digital projection mapping to make the sparks, molten metal and cooling slag at a robot programming workbench. Interactive projection mapping could guide kids through projects and challenges on workbenches. It would fuse the best elements of old fashioned video arcades, maker labs and science museums. The “E-ticket” attraction would be a virtual excavator experience – where kids sit in a REAL excavator cab that sits in a virtual live-rendered 360 surround screen. To the child, it feels like they are really digging with a massive piece of equipment! Or a virtual crane experience!

The business model would be split between the family audience on weekends/holidays/vacation periods and school trips supporting STEM education midweek.  A real STEM curriculum would be developed tying into Common Core and promoted to directly help teachers justify field trips to the mall. I would not waste the time and revenue to license IP – no Bobs who build here – I don’t buy for a second that the added IP would actually drive local attendance anymore then standard social media promotion. 

And the gift shop would be AWESOME: Loads of merch, toy hardware, robots, maker kits, even classic toys like die-cast bulldozers.  Perhaps sponsorships could be worked out with brands like Caterpillar, Deere, Kuka, DeWalt, etc. To extend revenue and promote returnability, a subscription “monthly maker kit” could be offered like Kiwi or Crunch Labs. For larger locations that could support food service, the café could be awesome: Imagine factor line robots making the food. Or a birthday room that is all virtual LED walls, where it feels like the kids are re-enacting the famous photo of the construction workers eating their lunch on the steel beam high in the skyline.

Altogether it would be fantastic place to spend time as a family while helping expose kids to the world of making professions!