2022 Report Card & Happy Holidays!

What a year it’s been! As this busy, eventful year draws to a close, we wanted to highlight some of 2022’s activities.

Many thanks to our customers, partners, and community for your ongoing support and use of Makers Empire. Thank you for helping us empower more students, teachers, schools, and parents than ever before! A shoutout to the hard-working Makers Empire team, too, for all that they do.

We wish all of you a joyful, relaxing, and safe holiday season.

Makers Empire By the Numbers: 2022

5,000 Makers Empire schools*

Average 50,000+ new designs/day

3,000,000+ users in 50+ countries

19,209,135 3D designs made in 2022

12 in-app competitions

14 Challenge Courses

409,772 mazes made

30,616,116 maze runs

*Paid and non-paying school customers

New UniSA Research Study

In 2022, Makers Empire was delighted to learn that a UniSA research study revealed compelling evidence that using the Makers Empire 3D learning program can significantly improve primary school students’ spatial reasoning skills, whilst also improving student’s attitudes towards STEM and Design Thinking.

Simon Leonard, Associate Professor of STEM Education at the University of South Australia says, “We’ve known for a while now that spatial thinking is one of the really important ingredients to success across the STEM disciplines, and that spatial reasoning is malleable — it can be improved. What we’re seeing in this research is some clear indications of how to design large-scale educational programs to support that improvement. Specifically, we’ve seen that the Makers Empire program that takes account of the emotional side of learning and builds self-efficacy is supporting significant cognitive improvement with respect to spatial thinking”.

Over the course of the Makers Empire program, there was a significant increase in three spatial reasoning skills: spatial orientation, spatial visualisation and mental rotation. The Makers Empire program also appeared to improve students’ attitudes towards digital and design technologies, foster appreciation of the creativity involved in design thinking, and decrease anxiety students felt about STEM.

Highlights of 2022

This year, Makers Empire also delivered a wide range of projects for different education partners. Here are a few highlights from a busy year that saw the Makers Empire team crisscrossing Australia and heading overseas once again to work with education departments, education ministries, corporate sponsors, foundations and trusts. Click on the image or title for more information about each project.

Kids in Space

Water Warriors

Bushfire Brave

Aurora Inclusion

Careers Under Construction

Queensland 3D Printing Project

NT STEM Education Project

Catholic Education WA STEM

Feedback from Teachers in 2022 Projects

"The Makers Empire - Kids in Space Project was a comprehensive learning experience for both staff and students. Firstly building teachers' knowledge with quality PD on space and Makers Empire enabled teachers to confidently teach the students. The students were highly engaged in the learning, empowered to problem solve and be creative to solve space issues whilst developing their skills on Makers Empire. The showcase event with other schools around the state was a highlight. I would highly recommend this project for schools to participate in."

"My year 4 students are doing the Sustainable Communities challenge and loving it. My year 2s are doing the Water Challenge and loving it! Just wanted to pass on thanks from the team and I for your fabulous resources!"

"Makers Empire is a fantastic project that provides multiple benefits to students, teachers and schools. One of the most amazing things I saw was a non-verbal (by choice) student in year five, (being) involved in multiple, on-task conversations and actively involved in the problem-solving process. This student now says hello to me every day."

“Thankfully, teachers don’t need to be experts to get the ball rolling with Makers Empire. A key strength is that so much learning is built right into the platform. Students progress through tutorials at their own pace, with written and spoken instructions there to guide them. My students think they’re just playing a computer game when they use Makers Empire, but from a teacher’s perspective, I see them developing vital spatial skills, persistence and confidence while experiencing how technology can enable them to become problem solvers of the future. Makers Empire has resulted in one of the smoothest introductions of new technologies at our school."

"First, can I say how very much I, and my students, have loved using Makers Empire – it’s THE best program I have ever used! I loved your lesson plans, the continuous new ideas and innovations to the program but, most of all, your absolutely marvellous support. Every (silly) question or problem has always been sorted quickly and without me feeling embarrassed for having asked."