March 28, Tsinghua News (Reporter LIU Weiru)
On the evening of March 26, Principal CHEN Jining paid a visit to the Fundamental Industry Training Center and had conversations with the student makers and their teachers.
Principal CHEN Jining Having Conversations with Student Makers (Photo by WANG Haoran, student reporter)
Principal CHEN Jining visited the innovation studio, the innovation club and the Makerspace site one after another and exchanged ideas with students there. The student makers introduced to Principal CHEN Jining their own R&D projects, such as 3D printers, free angle wireless charging, cellphone applications and interactive designs and were highly affirmed for their innovative practice. When he met with a number of foreign students from Germany, Britain and other countries, Principal CHEN listened to their ideas on maker activities and their suggestions for interaction between international students and Chinese students.
During the visit, Principal CHEN talked about his impression of Tsinghua campus as a creative and transformative space and hoped that student makers could move Makers’ activities from their classroom to the space and put their wonderful ideas to practice on campus, turning it into a space full of creative, innovative ideas and aesthetic designs by combining technology with design. The Principal also hoped that the students could keep themselves open-minded to new things, find their interests through maker activities, train their innovative thinking and achieve insightful and original results.
Then Principal CHEN also had a discussion with the tutors of the maker team. GU Xueyong, an associate professor from the Department of Industrial Engineering, FU Zhiyong, an associate professor from the Academy of Arts & Design and LI Shuangshou, director of the Fundamental Industry Training Center, respectively talked about their experience and feelings as they guided students in their maker activities and suggested on how to further advance such activities and on constructing the Makerspace.
Student makers introducing R&D Projects to the Principal (Photo by Wang Haoran, student reporter)
According to Principal CHEN, maker activities required the support and guidance of passionate and devoted teachers whose interest and enthusiasm, therefore, should be motivated first in order to influence and inspire students. Principal CHEN also pointed out that, as one of the activities promoted by the 24th Education Symposium of Tsinghua University, maker activity is the focus of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship education, with a free, interdisciplinary and integrated atmosphere as its core. Therefore, Tsinghua University should further explore a flexible mechanism to stimulate the interest of teachers and students and keep a flexible, open and active system to cultivate students’ entrepreneurship and pioneering spirit.
Representatives from the office of academic affairs, the office of student affairs and the office of political research attended the meeting.
The Chinese phrase “Chuangke” comes from the English word “Hacker/Maker”, which refers to anyone who strives to turn creativity into reality. In November 2013, Tsinghua University launched an on-campus student-maker project followed by a “Maker Marathon” contest. At 24th Education Symposium of Tsinghua University, a special discussion was opened on the topic of “Establishing Interdisciplinary and Integrated Space for Makers”, with the aim to stimulate the inner power of students and to improve the quality of talent education through innovative education models.
Editor: XIANG Ye
