Why the domains sit together
The canonical definition of maker education is itself cross-disciplinary. Dale Dougherty describes it as a physical mash-up that integrates the workshop, home economics, art and science[2] — a deliberate refusal of the idea that making is a branch of engineering. The education literature describes it the same way, as practices that cut across subject boundaries rather than sitting inside one[3]. European policy analysis of makerspaces in education and training reaches a similar conclusion about the range of competences involved[29].
That matters practically, not just philosophically. Three things follow from putting seven domains on one floor rather than running seven separate courses.
Real problems are not single-subject
A device that helps a fisher needs electronics, a waterproof enclosure, a price and somebody who can explain it in a video. One domain solves none of that alone.
People arrive through different doors
Someone who will not come to a robotics class will come to record a song. Once inside, the whole space is available to them. Music is a door, not a diversion.
Capability transfers sideways
Iteration learned in a mixing session is the same iteration a prototype needs. What transfers between domains is the working method.
This matters most for the learners a technical programme is least likely to reach. Inclusion research finds participation improving when agency transfers to participants and non-traditional ways of knowing are valued[27] — which, concretely, means having something in the building that is not engineering.
Depth belongs to a domain, so someone can be deep in software, a beginner in electronics and midway through music. The maker profile records exactly that rather than averaging it into one number.
The domains offered now
This is the current portfolio, not a fixed structure. Domains may be added, combined or retired as community interest, facilitator capability and programme evidence develop. A practice area may be named here while still in development — two of those below are — but a structured programme is published only once its purpose, prerequisites, learning outcomes, delivery format and assessment evidence are clear. That is why the list of domains is longer than the list of programmes.
A domain describes what someone is learning and making. Technology is used across them wherever it improves the work — and not because a domain has been classified as technical. Music involves recording software and electronics; art involves digital fabrication; sport involves performance analysis. The grouping below is how this page is organised, not a statement about which domains are technical.
Maker education & fabrication
The core of the space: turning an idea into a physical thing that works. It runs as two related arcs sharing one floor.
- Electronics and robotics — basics of electronics, microcontrollers, connected systems, embedded intelligence
- Digital fabrication — 3D design and printing, laser cutting and engraving, CNC routing
- Cardboard and low-cost prototyping throughout — the cheapest step, and the one that replicates without capital
Digital education
From first contact with a computer to the digital fluency that professional and academic work assumes.
- Basic operation — how a computer handles input, processing, output and files
- System fundamentals, productivity software and everyday digital safety
- Number systems, first programming, physical computing
- Applied office work on a real project
- Professional fluency — AI tools, proposal writing and budgeting, a public professional profile
AI programmes
Artificial intelligence taught as something you build with and think critically about, not something that happens to you.
- No-code AI — no prior programming required; places and the usual participation conditions still apply
- AI and data science fundamentals — requires programming and hardware basics
- Generative AI and language models — requires programming maturity
- Responsible and ethical use runs through all three, not as a closing lecture
AI + electronics
Where the two previous domains meet: intelligence embedded in something physical. In practice this is a join rather than a ladder of its own — the upper half of the electronics arc combined with applied AI.
- Sensors, connected systems and simple automation
- Hardware projects that make a decision rather than follow a script
- First innovation projects linking physical making to digital intelligence
Software & tech-entrepreneurship
Code taught as a route to shipping something people use — including the commercial half that software courses usually leave out.
- Static web — markup, styling, hosting something publicly
- Front-end frameworks and interactive applications
- Full-stack development, data and APIs
- Ship and sell — testing, deployment, security, freelancing and running the work as a business
Creative and physical domains
These broaden how people enter, learn and create here, and in practice they are the widest doors into the building. Each uses digital tools, electronics, fabrication or AI wherever those serve the work.
Creative arts
Making through image, sound, performance and physical material, with traditional and digital tools treated with equal seriousness.
- Visual art and craft, including work in upcycled and salvaged material
- Music — playing, production, songwriting and beat-making
- Media — photography, video, and the editing that turns footage into a story
- Instrument-building, where craft and electronics meet
Fitness & sports
Physical development, discipline and teamwork, in two halves.
- A fitness studio — movement, conditioning, health and wellbeing
- Sports and athletics — team and individual sport
- Mind sport, anchored by chess
What a level actually is
A level is a descriptor of knowledge, skill and autonomy; a volume of notional learning hours; and the assessable artifact that evidences it. A course’s internal progression is described in Units, not levels, so that “level” keeps one meaning across the whole system.
Levels belong to programmes, not to people, and they exist only inside the Maker stage. Above it, progress is marked by named milestones instead. The exit condition of the Maker stage in any domain is the skilled maker: someone who can independently carry a suitable project in that domain — their own, or one that came from a community, a partner or the programme — all the way to the completion standard. That is a demonstrable event, not a duration.
What actually deepens between one level and the next
“Harder” is not a specification. Four axes make the difference between adjacent levels checkable, and a level that has not moved along any of them is not a level — it is more of the same work with a bigger number on it.
A level count is derived from the subject, not standardised across subjects
We anchor the two ends — entry with no prior making, and exit as a skilled maker — and then identify the genuine capability thresholds between them, against the volume of one deliverable block. That involves judgement, and the result has to be justified rather than asserted: each level must carry distinct outcomes, a defensible learning volume and its own assessable evidence. What the rule rules out is picking a number to match another subject.
Because different domains genuinely contain different numbers of thresholds, they do not line up into equal columns, and we do not force them to.
| Domain | Levels | The capability spine |
|---|---|---|
| Maker & fabrication — electronics and robotics | 4 | Electronics foundations → microcontrollers → connected systems → embedded intelligence |
| Maker & fabrication — digital fabrication | 3 | 3D design and printing → laser cutting and engraving → CNC routing |
| Digital education | 5 | Basic operation → system fundamentals and productivity → programming and physical computing → applied project work → professional digital fluency |
| AI programmes | 3 | No-code AI → AI and data science fundamentals → generative AI and language models |
| AI + electronics | 2 | Connected systems → embedded AI. A join between two domains rather than an independent ladder. |
| Software & tech-entrepreneurship | 4 | Static web → front-end framework → full stack → ship and sell |
| Creative arts | — | Delivery is real and continuous. An ordered progression has not been published for it yet. |
| Fitness & sports | — | Not yet derivable. Mind sport is the one established anchor. |
A published level count carries a promise: a placement check, an exit condition and an assessable artifact at every threshold. Where a subject does not yet have those, the entry is a dash — which describes the state of the documentation, not the quality of the teaching.
The floors
Domains are what a learner progresses through. Floors are what the building is physically divided into — an area, its equipment, the capability held there, and the people who gather around it. A floor is facilitated on rotation and not owned by one person — a deliberate rule rather than a convenience, because capability that belongs to an individual leaves when they do.
Electromechanics
Electronics and mechanics share one floor, because most device work draws on both and separating them separates the bench from the board.
Software
Machines, network, and the quiet a person needs to debug something.
Media
Camera, lighting, edit stations.
Music
Instruments, recording and production.
AI is deliberately not a floor and not a separate space. It runs as a thread through all of them, because that is how it appears in real work: in the sensor board, in the edit, in the code, in the analysis.
Delivery formats
Open experiences
Explorer-stage entry experiences providing access to tools, ideas and possible domains. Unassessed, and no prior capability required. Places, safeguarding and practical conditions still apply.
Structured programmes
Maker-stage programmes with stated prerequisites, Units, learning outcomes and assessed work leading to a certificate.
Open making sessions
Unstructured, self-directed time on the floor. Nothing assessed, and timetabled deliberately rather than left over — see facilitation.
Challenge and project work
Present throughout the journey; at Innovator and above it carries real external context, user contact and learner responsibility, with milestones recorded rather than graded.
What every structured programme publishes
This list is the specification. A programme that cannot fill it in is not ready to be offered.
- Purpose and prerequisites
- Learning outcomes and expected time commitment
- Units and capability thresholds
- Tools, materials and safety requirements
- Assessed artifacts, and the programme’s Definition of Done gloss row
- The placement check, and how prior learning is recognised
- Certification evidence — what the artifact, talk-through and reflection must show
- Version, publication date and updated date
The last line is not administrative housekeeping. A programme document without a version and a date cannot be corrected, because nobody can tell which version a learner was taught against.
The enterprise strand runs through all of them
Research and development, entrepreneurship, and business and financial literacy run across the portfolio rather than being taught as a separate closing module — mapped against the published entrepreneurship competence framework[36]. They are integrated where they serve the learner or the project. Enterprise capability is not the same as commercialisation, and no learner, artwork or community project is required to become a business.
The sequence is gated on prerequisites rather than age. Saving and selling are accessible very early[43]; profit depends on first grasping price comparison[45]; and the strongest randomised trial of experiential enterprise education for young people found it moved mindset rather than business knowledge[39]. So early stages build the disposition through making and, where a learner chooses it, simple selling under the protections set out for that activity; abstract business content attaches later, to whoever holds the prerequisite. The full strand is set out under innovation & enterprise.
Where each domain actually stands
Programme documentation and delivery at scale are two different claims. A domain can have a deep, well-authored curriculum and still have run only a handful of times, so this table reports them separately.
| Domain | Curriculum | Delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Maker & fabrication | Deep and long-running | Sustained, across bootcamps and in-school delivery |
| Digital education | Deep, aligned to the national information-technology syllabus | Sustained, largely through school partnerships |
| AI programmes | Deep and recent | Delivered; some programmes documented but not confirmed at scale |
| AI + electronics | Derived from two adjacent curricula | Delivered as modules within other programmes |
| Software & tech-entrepreneurship | Deep | Uneven — some cohorts confirmed end to end, others documented but not confirmed |
| Creative arts | Not yet published as a progression | Genuine and continuous — art and music sessions, production bootcamps, instrument courses, a record label |
| Fitness & sports | Not authored | Mind sport only. Physical fitness and field sport are an intention, not a record |
What is settled, and what is not
| Settled | Not yet settled |
|---|---|
| The stage structure and the stage-versus-level distinction | The assessable artifact at each derived level, in most domains |
| The completion standard and the three certificate evidence sources | Whether certificates carry external accreditation or remain internally issued |
| Placement by demonstrated capability; no use of age | A published progression for the creative arts |
| That level counts are derived per domain, not chosen | Exit criteria at each level, per domain |
This column reports what is currently documented. Written curriculum is a living record, and practices established in delivery are sometimes not written down for years — so a gap here does not prove an activity is absent. It does mean the activity is not being presented as an established programme component until it is recorded.