Taking Tech on the Road: Mobile Makerspaces and Archaeological Engagement

Summary

This poster introduces a London, Ontario-based initiative called the Digital Humanities MakerBus, a school bus converted into an innovative classroom, laboratory, and creative play space. The purpose of the project is to provide access to digital technologies and other hands-on resources to community groups wherever they may be located. Although the project has been wildly interdisciplinary since its inception and was not conceived of with any specific disciplinary purpose in mind, our team believes that there is enormous potential for mobile makerspaces to democratize access to technologies and inspire new forms of archaeological engagement. The MakerBus provides a means for individuals and groups to develop community-driven projects in their own meaningful spaces. Potential projects include archaeological, historical, and heritage based projects, which, heretofore, have not been a common focus of other established "maker" projects. Along with an introduction to the "maker movement," this poster will present a short outline of several maker technologies and demonstrate how they have already been utilized toward the aims of archaeological and heritage engagement by our project. Ultimately this poster aims to inspire dialogue about the implications of democratizing technologies and about what it means to change the locus for archaeological exploration and engagement.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage