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Hackademia: building functional rather than accredited engineers

Hackademia is a semi-formal learning group that introduces largely non-technical students to basic technical skills by presenting them with open-ended challenges in a peer-based, collaborative environment. This project has two main goals: the near-end goal has been to use a collaborative design model to develop a working, scalable model for teaching engineering literacies in higher education, and the long-term goal is to create participatory opportunities for end-users to develop innovative technologies. This paper describes progress towards the short-term goal, and lessons learned from two years of work to develop a semi-structured educational experience influenced by participant desires. Hackademia leverages a participant-observer research model and participatory research methods such as autoethnographies, experience blogging, and semi-structured focus groups.