The Nebraska Innovation Maker Co-Laboratory (NiMC) project is developing a model to establish and support makerspaces in rural communities. As makerspaces gain in popularity a chasm has developing between urban access and lack thereof for rural populations. The MiMC model supports collaboration between university faculty and staff and rural makerspaces by utilizing virtual reality and telepresence robots. The exploratory research project deployed telepresence robotics to teach, co-teach and provide project support to a rural community (pop. 7,000) makerspace. Virtual reality was used to teach creativity concepts, VR digital creation and digital to physical manifestation of projects. The NiMC project will continue to explore the model of connection and support of rural makerspaces.
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Barker, B., Valentine, D., Grandgenett, N., Keshwani, J. & Burnett, A. (2018). Using Virtual Reality and Telepresence Robotics in Making. In Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 564-568). Las Vegas, NV, United States: