How DIY can Pave a Successful Career in STEM
DIY is enjoyed by many nowadays - these activities may pop up on your YouTube suggestions, as an event, or even in the classroom! As indicated in the name, Do-It-Yourself allows people to create, solve, and learn on their own. These Do-It-Yourself projects serve many benefits and purposes.
Personalization in Time and Money
Since they are individual projects, people can tailor them accordingly to suit their best interests - this also includes the time they want to spend. Inside HigherEd states that the popularity of DIY is “driven by the possibility of personalization and customization to meet individual needs just in time and just in place”. Individuals can control their own time and work according to their own pace, allowing flexibility in one’s schedule and their journey in the learning process.
DIYs also allow the flexibility of how much money individuals want to spend; “the options are in the thousands, and the costs are minimal”. The possibilities of DIY are endless and the range of how much you want to spend can be controlled. There are many low cost, yet high quality options available.
Self-Expression and Removing Pressure
In addition to flexibility of time and money, individuals will be able to have more self-expression as DIY is customizable and fully dependent on the individual working on it. By setting your own pace and choosing what you want to work on, DIY removes common academic pressures and as mentioned by STEMpedia, “all unwanted ambiguity of grades and their credibility”. This form of independence may be especially helpful for students that find it hard to perform under the pressures of test scores and tight deadlines, allowing them a thriving environment to simply focus on learning and completing the project.
Self-Satisfaction/Accomplishment in Problem-Solving
Because DIYs are dependent on an individual, it can bring a lot of self-satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment. DIY gives people a goal to work towards and the individual is able to see every step of the way and how it has created the end result. Individuals are able to problem-solve by themselves and this can boost confidence and add meaning to their accomplishment in the end.
8BitCADE: A Great DIY Project!
8BitCADE is a fun and educational DIY project that can provide all of the benefits stated above. The 8BitCADE Original and 8BitCADE XL are DIY kits that allow users to build a handheld gaming console and program over 200 retro games. If you want to take it up a notch on the creativity side, you can even customize the casing of the 8BitCADEXL and add your own personal design. Additionally, users can modify the open-source design! These DIY kits offer many layers of learning about electronics and coding.