Introduction

The purpose of the present investigation was to engage teams of elementary school students in inventing, designing, and making artifacts with the support of traditional and digital fabrication technologies and associated epistemic practices. Humans are facing increasingly severe cumulative problems and risks related to climate change, the sustainability of Earth, geopolitical crises, and radical inequality (Hakkarainen & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, 2022). An increasing gap appears to prevail between such profound challenges and the limited creative capabilities inculcated by the current educational practices. The present educational system was created for the needs of a stable industrial society. Therefore, it is incapable of providing epistemic, social, and creative-improvisational skills and competencies required by productive participation in future working life. Concurrently, there is a growing disparity between young people’s highly engaging social experiences outside of school and our current educational practices within the school. Furthermore, although 10–15% of adolescents use digital devices in creative ways, most spontaneously emergent forms of sociodigital participation are shallow and sometimes even risky (Hakkarainen et al., 2015; Hietajärvi et al., 2016, 2020; Moisala et al., 2016). Thus, developing new educational practices is urgently needed to enable productive participation in the rapidly changing innovation-driven society. This appears to require, in particular, education for invention: Young people should be engaged in practicing personal and social-creative competencies, including nonroutine problem-solving, invention capacity, entrepreneurial skills, and risk-taking adaptability, and skills related to effective teamwork and the creating and sharing of knowledge from the beginning of education. Coping with constantly changing work environments requires epistemic fluency (Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2017) in terms of adaptive integration of formal and informal knowledge for solving complex problems. All citizens need to be more capable of seeing things from fresh perspectives, enhanced creative self-efficacy, and associated identities as potential inventors or creators of knowledge (Bereiter, 2002; Hakkarainen et al., 2004).

In recent years, there has been an acknowledgment of the significance of acquainting students with making, and it has been seen as essential for children to be educated and empowered to innovate, design, and build technologies (Blikstein, 2013; Smith et al., 2015). Maker-centered learning is seen to support students’ creativity and skills needed for the twenty-first century. Previous research has revealed various ways in which children learn and collaborate in maker-centered learning settings, albeit mainly focusing on merely describing maker projects (Clapp, 2016; Papavlasopoulou et al., 2017; Schad & Jones, 2020). Some studies have found that students are supportive and respectful toward each other and recognize and draw on each other’s expertise (Giusti & Bombieri, 2020; Herro, Quigley, Plank, et al., 2021b). The making activity outcomes were found to act as mediators in promoting mutual recognition between students with varying cognitive capabilities and special needs in inclusive settings (Herro, Quigley, & Abimbade, 2021a). Furthermore, a community of interest that emerges through collaborative making activities was also found to be effective in supporting interest development and sustainability (Tan et al., 2021). Some studies have used pre- and post-test settings to examine the motivational impact of making activities or to measure specific subject-based learning outcomes (e.g., Laakso et al., 2021; Lin et al., 2020; Sormunen et al., 2023; van Breukelen et al., 2017). Previous studies have also looked into pedagogical strategies to facilitate maker-centered learning projects (e.g., Campos et al., 2019; Härkki et al., 2021; Sawyer, 2011; Vossoughi et al., 2021), what kind of support teachers need, and how curriculums and schools should be developed to support maker-centered learning activities (Andersen & Pitkänen, 2019; Becker & Jacobsen, 2020).

Only a few studies have, however, analyzed students’ knowledge-creation processes from a more holistic perspective, systematically looking into the processes and epistemic practices applied in collaborative open-ended design and making activities (Davies et al., 2023; Hakkarainen & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, 2022). Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, and colleagues (2020b) have analyzed the nature of nonlinear design and making processes and students’ teamwork. Kajamaa & Kumpulainen (2020) investigated collaborative knowledge practices and how those are mediated in school makerspaces. They identified four types of knowledge practices involved in maker-centered learning activities—orienting, interpreting, concretizing, and expanding knowledge—and how discourse, materials, embodied actions, and the physical space mediate these practices. Their findings also showed that, owing to the complexity of these practices, students might find maker-centered learning activities difficult. Also, the sociomateriality in student teams’ co-invention processes has been analyzed, and studies have revealed how the materiality simultaneously sparks the complexity of designing and anchors the process to tangible activity. The rich material resources offer options for multiple simultaneous tasks and provide all team members with hands-on access to the project. Students’ freedom to organize their work independently gives plenty of space for students’ motivations and social relations (Mehto, Riikonen, Kangas, et al., 2020b). A study by Kumpulainen and Kajamaa (2020) emphasized the sociomaterial dynamics of agency, where agency flows in any combination between students, teachers, and materials. Teachers’ interventions in students’ collaboration and cross-age peer tutoring have been investigated in a few studies and were found to be highly effective in promoting learning in maker education (Kajamaa et al., 2020; Kumpulainen et al., 2020; Weng et al., 2022; Winters et al., 2022). However, the field still lacks research on how open-ended, maker-centered design processes unfold both with and without teacher or peer tutor engagement.

The present investigation builds on and expands the findings and methodological approaches of our previous research. In our previous studies, we have investigated students’ collaboration and teamwork. We have traced the development of the design ideas and epistemic architectures of maker practices that the teams’ co-invention processes rely on (Davies et al., 2023), the development of pedagogical infrastructures for co-invention in formal school settings, and the role of peer-tutoring (Davies, 2022; Riikonen, Kangas, et al., 2020a; Tenhovirta et al., 2022). In the present study, we seek to deepen the understanding of knowledge creation in co-invention by analyzing three student teams’ co-invention projects through the nature, flow, and interrelations of the application of maker practices and the influence of teacher and peer tutor engagement on the teams. The study was conducted as a multiple case study of three teams of 13–14-year-old students (seventh graders) who participated in a co-invention project at a public school in [removed for anonymity]. Co-invention projects follow the invention pedagogy approach, where boundary objects guide participation in authentic knowledge-creating learning processes in a maker-centered science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) context as part of everyday school activity (Honey & Kanter, 2013; Korhonen et al., 2022; Martin, 2015; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen & Hakkarainen, 2017). In these projects, students solve meaningful everyday design challenges through nonlinear, iterative processes (Härkki et al., 2021). In our previous studies, we have also developed a systematic video analysis methodology to analyze maker-centered and materially mediated collaborative processes (Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2023) that we utilized and further developed in the present study.

Our research was guided by the question: How do student teams create knowledge through maker practices in co-invention projects? To answer this question, two specific research questions were formed:

  1. 1.

    How did maker practices and epistemic objects foster the advancement of the teams’ co-invention processes?

  2. 2.

    How did teacher or peer tutor engagement affect the application of maker practices and the teams’ co-invention processes?

In the following sections, we first introduce the theoretical foundations of the study. We then outline the research setting and the methods of data collection and analysis. Finally, we present our findings and discuss the implications of the study.

Theoretical framework: Knowledge-creating learning through maker-centered activities and invention pedagogy

The theoretical foundation of the present study relies on the knowledge-creating learning framework (Hakkarainen et al., 2004; Paavola et al., 2004; Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2014, 2021). The constantly developing, innovation-driven knowledge society requires people to learn skills that cannot be acquired just by absorbing existing information and solving closed textbook problems, as described by the “monological” knowledge acquisition metaphor of learning, nor by adopting existing community practices and norms, as often suggested by the “dialogical” participation metaphor (Sfard, 1998). The knowledge creation metaphor, for its part, highlights the importance of cultivating young peoples’ inventive skills and creative cultural participation. The knowledge-creation metaphor is considered “trialogical” because it examines learning in terms of heterogeneous interaction between individuals and communities, concepts, tools, and practices, as well as shared invention objects being developed. The knowledge-creation metaphor was inspired by the theories of Peirce (1992, 1998), Popper (1972), and Vygotsky (1980), and by educational and organizational theories by Bereiter (2002), Engeström (1987), and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995).

Theories, practices, and technologies mediating learning are sociomaterially entangled (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). Available technologies for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) virtually structure human activity, and prevailing social practices shape the ways of using technologies and their affordances. According to Stahl and Hakkarainen (2021), CSCL has been traditionally understood as a form of educational technology where students communicate over networked devices. However, the development of educational maker culture indicates that CSCL may involve learning “around” rather than only “through” digital technology. While the traditional CSCL environments provide a medium for learners’ synchronous or asynchronous online interaction, the emerging maker practices engage learners in interacting face-to-face and co-creating knowledge or artifacts around digital devices within makerspaces. To foster knowledge-creating learning in educational settings, the present investigators and their colleagues have developed the invention pedagogy framework (Korhonen et al., 2022); it is a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989) enabling researchers, educators, technology developers, administrators, and policymakers to jointly address the implementation of knowledge-creating learning (Hakkarainen et al., 2004; Paavola et al., 2004; Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2014, 2021), learning by collaborative design (Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2010) and educational maker culture (Blikstein, 2013; Peppler et al., 2016) at schools. The present study contributes to the advancement of CSCL research by carefully tracing the active role of digital–material artifacts and physical, virtual, or mixed environments in which enacted maker activity is embedded (Malafouris, 2013).

Seemingly reproductive educational practices and available information repositories, search engines, and discussion forums guided, according to Paavola and Hakkarainen (2021), investigators to focus on either the information genre or communication genre when addressing educational use of technologies (Enyedy & Hoadley, 2006). The pioneering research of Scardamalia and Bereiter (2021) and Bereiter (2002) changed the scene and contributed to the emergence of collaborative technologies supporting knowledge creation. Their experiments engaged young students in constructing textual and graphic notes for building a local body of “world 3”—cultural knowledge (Popper, 1972) in the Knowledge Forum environment (Scardamalia, 2004). Knowledge building ambitiously aimed at the Copernican revolution of placing students’ ideas, understood as conceptual artifacts (Bereiter, 2002), in the center rather than on the periphery of education. When Hakkarainen and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen engaged in research and development of the Future Learning Environments in Finland (see https://github.com/LeGroup/Fle4), they deliberately aimed to expand CSCL also to provide support for the collaborative design of materially embodied artifacts (Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2001, 2010). To deepen the understanding of sociomaterial aspects of knowledge-creating learning, the present investigators looked more deeply at emerging science and technology studies (Knorr Cetina, 1999; Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Pickering, 1995; Rheinberger, 1997), theories of cognitive evolution (Donald, 1991; Malafouris, 2013; Skagestad, 1993), distributed cognition (Clark, 2003; Hutchins, 1995), and actor–network theory (Latour, 2005). It was soon realized that knowledge creation is neither a mere mental nor only conceptual process but rather is a messy struggle of creating, developing, and extending epistemic “things” or artifacts across long-term iterative efforts of individuals, teams, and learning communities supported by epistemic technologies (Hakkarainen, 2009; Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2021). Their design experiments carried out in schools—initially mediated by Knowledge Forum—involved engaging students in hybrid physical, digital, and virtual practices and integrated knowledge building with designing and making materially embodied artifacts (Kangas et al., 2007, 2013).

The first contribution of the present investigation is to provide a more refined analysis of epistemic objects guiding student teams’ invention processes. Knowledge-creating learning processes are guided and mediated by emergent envisioned solutions or inventions-in-making, which we refer to as epistemic objects; this theoretical concept is anchored in science and technology studies from Rheinberger (1997) and Knorr Cetina (1999). Knowledge-creating learning engages students in sketching and prototyping their inventions, thereby generating materially embodied concrete but meaning-laden artifacts. Simultaneously, creative processes are directed toward the epistemic objects, i.e., the student’s ideas and thoughts, envisioned options, and future-oriented projections regarding the nature of the invention. Epistemic objects comprise the intertwined epistemic and material aspects of design—with all the visions, aspirations, projections, processes, and knowledge involved—instantiated in sketches, prototypes, and other design artifacts(Knorr Cetina, 2001; Mehto, Riikonen, Hakkarainen, et al., 2020a). Epistemic objects help crystallize what the participants seek to accomplish, what they aim at, and what they do not yet know or understand. Epistemic objects are constantly evolving and open to interpretation, actively inviting contributions from the participants by raising new questions (Davies et al., 2023; Ewenstein & Whyte, 2009; Knorr Cetina, 2001). As Rheinberger (1997) and Knorr Cetina (1999) noticed, artifact-in-making involves implicit hints about missing pieces or lacking features that assist in directing further invention activities.

In invention processes, compromises are always necessary according to available materials, production procedures, and fabrication opportunities. Furthermore, the lack of refinement of epistemic objects enables different interpretations to emerge, even among team members with similar knowledge, offering opportunities to explore alternative solutions and encapsulating conversations that led to their creation, pushing the process forward (Beltagui et al., 2023). Epistemic objects foster team members’ joint efforts in spite of their initially diverging interpretations of the envisioned invention. Yet, digital design artifacts, such as computer-aided design (CAD) models, can be problematic in terms of functioning as epistemic objects and may limit experimentation owing to their high refinement and apparent accuracy, as well as the time and effort needed to create and modify them (Beltagui et al., 2023). Beltagui and colleagues (2023) suggested that digital design artifacts should not be used too early in the process, as they could limit creativity and hinder the participation of people who are not experienced in the technology. However, they suggest that digital artifacts can play an essential role in later stages of the process, where the precision of such artifacts can stabilize the design and limit consideration of further options, thus helping draw the process to a conclusion.

The second contribution of the present article relates to tracing epistemic practices enacted in students’ collaborative invention processes. Knowledge-creating learning involves engaging students in epistemic practices of solving nontrivial scientific, engineering, design, and aesthetic problems to collaboratively overcome open-ended invention challenges. In nonlinear invention processes, the actual goals, objects, stages, digital instruments, and results cannot be predetermined, and the flow of creative activity cannot be rigidly scripted (Hakkarainen & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, 2022; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014). Consequently, it is neither possible nor desirable to predetermine specific epistemic practices and skills to be employed. Instead of instructing students to learn fixed tools and given procedures, they are provided with access to maker practices as disciplinary domains of knowledge-creating activity. Our previous research on idea generation within co-invention projects (Davies et al., 2023) revealed that participation in knowledge-creation processes generated an epistemic architecture of maker practices (e.g., Osborne, 2014; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2010; Worsley & Blikstein, 2016). Such epistemic architecture combines science, computer engineering, product design, and design process practices in the context of collaboratively designing, making, and inventing artifacts with the help of both traditional and digital fabrication technologies.

Scientific practices constitute an essential aspect of next-generation standards for science education (Krajcik & Shin, 2014; Osborne, 2014; Sormunen et al., 2023). Such practices engage students in applying scientific knowledge and principles to investigate complex phenomena and conduct inquiries mediated by questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, visualizing, modeling results, and building knowledge. Computer engineering practices, in turn, are needed to find potential solutions for design problems related to digital technologies (Laakso et al., 2021). Product design practices focus on product quality, user experience, and the functional suitability of design ideas and inventing to the purpose something is intended for. Both computer engineering and product design practices require the teams to determine their criteria, construct and iteratively test model solutions, compare their strengths and weaknesses, and build and communicate results (Krajcik & Shin, 2014). Design process practices rely on the framework of collaborative design practices (Kangas et al., 2013; Koh et al., 2015; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2010), which characterize advanced design and technology studies, crafts education, and creative STEAM projects carried out in schools. Collaborative designing involves team efforts to find and construct material-laden solutions to a design challenge; working with physical materials stimulates team collaboration (Rowell, 2002). Collaboration requires all group members to focus on a shared epistemic object pursued through coordinated invention efforts that involve maintaining and advancing a shared understanding of the co-invention challenge (Damşa et al., 2010). The design process is iterative in nature; it involves generating initial design ideas, making the ideas concrete by writing them down and visualizing them, refining the ideas by studying users and their needs, analyzing the design constraints, exploring and testing various aspects of design, creating prototypes, obtaining feedback, and constructing the design object.

The co-invention projects are multi-material, anchored in integrative thematic study projects, and orchestrated by teacher teams that represent multiple subject domains, combining traditional crafts and digital fabrication technologies and involving holistic processes, including all stages, from design ideation to experimentation, fabrication, and evaluation of the final products (Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen & Hakkarainen, 2017). We have conducted co-invention projects in various schools and at different grade levels to offer students opportunities to take part in knowledge creation and creative use of technology (Mehto, Riikonen, Kangas, et al., 2020b; Riikonen, Kangas, et al., 2020a; Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b). The co-invention projects offer a collaborative way to design and make, as well as a contextual application of knowledge and skills to devise novel and practical solutions to relevant real-world issues and solve the associated design challenges (Bevan et al., 2015; Clapp, 2016; Honey & Kanter, 2013). Such iterative maker activities nurture various habits of the mind (values, attitudes, and thinking skills) when children begin making sense of complex problems to create solutions (Martin, 2015; Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014; Worsley & Blikstein, 2016). Participation in knowledge-creating learning fosters interest-driven sociodigital participation and assists in interconnecting informal and formal learning experiences (Ito et al., 2013), thereby improving students’ epistemic fluency (Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2017). Participation in co-invention projects deepens students’ sociodigital competencies, especially their artistic and technical digital skills (Laakso et al., 2021). Our experiences further indicate that participation in collaborative invention provides students with a strong sense of contribution (Honneth, 1995). Maker practices are likely to inspire school engagement and improve the schoolwork practices of students who experience alienation in traditional educational settings (Hietajärvi et al., 2020).

The third sought-after contribution to CSCL literature relates to the role of teachers and tutors in facilitating collaborative making processes. Maker-centered learning is characterized by the active role of students in taking responsibility for, organizing, and making decisions about their own projects. The pedagogical approaches that teachers take in such projects should not, however, be overly constrained by adult-centered versus child-centered binaries (Vossoughi et al., 2021) or opposition between a highly supervised learning process and non-directed exploration (Campos et al., 2019; Sawyer, 2011). Instead, teachers should aim for intergenerational learning, where teachers and students work together and use their earlier creative projects to improvise and ascend to the next level during subsequent iterations (Sawyer, 2011; Viilo et al., 2018; Vossoughi et al., 2021). In the present case, such intergenerational learning was involved in cross-age peer tutoring, where the preceding year’s tutees become the present year’s tutors (Davies, 2022; Härkki et al., 2021; Tenhovirta et al., 2022). Involving peer tutors in the school’s pedagogical infrastructure can: (1) free up teachers’ time to concentrate on the scaffolding of the classroom activity instead of solving individual teams’ technological and practical problems; (2) offer opportunities to utilize more advanced digital technologies, as the teachers do not have to familiarize themselves with all the technologies used in the projects; (3) narrow the gap between teachers and students, thus promoting a more democratic school community; and (4) offer opportunities for personal growth and have far-reaching positive effects for the peer tutor students themselves (Davies, 2022).

Teachers and students’ scaffolding activities are supported by improvised makerspaces and associated studio pedagogies (Sawyer, 2017) that art, crafts, science laboratories, and practices provide in schools. The teachers’ main aim in such collaborative processes is to sustain the epistemic practices that support the students in advancing their invention ideas and organizing their joint processes (Hakkarainen, 2009). This requires the teachers to move away from pre-established scripts and pre-set procedures, embracing the self-organized, non-linear, and open nature of knowledge-creating, maker-centered learning by carefully balancing sufficient structuring and flexibility toward emergent ideas and practices (Gutwill et al., 2015; Sawyer, 2011; Viilo et al., 2018). Cognitively diverse student teams especially need well-designed learning tasks, adaptable approaches, and support to be able to engage in joint idea improvement efforts instead of separate tasks or activities (Sormunen et al., 2020). Gutwill et al. (2015) described the framework of three teachers’ facilitation moves that support students’ knowledge creation: sparking initial interest, sustaining participation through frustrating moments, and deepening students’ understanding and commitment by introducing new ideas and tools, demonstrating possible solutions and related phenomena, and making connections to students’ previous experiences and everyday life. Even direct assistance can be generative when embedded in an ethos of joint activity—doing with rather than doing for the students (Vossoughi et al., 2021). However, overly stiff scripting and direct assistance, disconnected from the joint activity, may disrupt the openness and emergent nature of the process, which is crucial to knowledge-creating learning (Sawyer, 2011; Vossoughi et al., 2021).

Research setting

The present investigators organized a collaborative invention project with a public school in Helsinki, Finland, in the spring of 2019. This was our third cohort of similar projects organized in this school (see Davies et al., 2023; Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b). A seventh-grade technology-focused class of 18 students aged 13−14 years participated in the project, implemented as part of the regular curricular activity, mainly during crafts lessons. We worked with two crafts teachers and a visual arts teacher to coordinate the project. The same crafts teachers had participated as the main coordinators of the projects in the two previous cohorts, and the visual arts teacher had participated in the project during the previous year. Science and information and communication technology (ICT) teachers participated in the project when their expertise was needed. Furthermore, we engaged grade 8 students to work as “digital technology” tutors, providing additional guidance to the participants (Davies, 2022; Tenhovirta et al., 2022). The tutor students had participated in a similar innovation project the previous year.

Before the invention project started, the students visited [removed for anonymity] and participated in three warm-up sessions. During the first warm-up session, they experimented with electric circuits by making postcards with copper tape, simple LEDs, and coin-cell batteries. The tutor students arranged the second warm-up session, a microcontroller workshop, to familiarize the students with the possibilities and infrastructure of microcontrollers and to promote the emergence of ideas for how microcontrollers can be utilized in inventions. In the third warm-up session, the teams were formed. Each team was asked to design a logo for themselves to bond their team together and introduce them to collaborative design and quick sketching. The actual co-invention project began in February. The co-invention challenge, co-configured between teachers and researchers, was open-ended:

Invent a smart product or a smart garment relying on traditional and digital fabrication technologies, such as microcontrollers or 3D CAD.

The project was carried out over one or two weekly co-invention workshop sessions (approximately 45 min–1.5 h per session) between February and May 2019. The teams also presented their inventions at a co-invention exhibition at the [removed for anonymity] in May 2019.

Methods of data acquisition and analysis

Our analysis relied on video data and on-site observations of student teams’ co-invention processes (Derry et al., 2010). The teams were formed by teacher selection. In the previous cohorts, the selection of the teams by the students themselves or by random draw had resulted in difficulties in team collaboration and in some teams finding it difficult to concentrate on the project (see Davies et al., 2023; Mehto, Riikonen, Kangas, et al., 2020b). Consequently, the decision was made for the teachers to use their pedagogical expertise to form well-balanced teams. Six teams were formed, of which we collected data from five. One team was excluded from the data collection because the students or their guardians did not give research permits. Three teams were selected for the analysis of this study on the basis of the completeness of the video data. The two teams that were excluded from the analysis were very similar to the included teams in terms of team members and the overall characteristics of their inventions. Thus, we consider the three analyzed teams to represent the whole group well. Each team’s co-invention process was video recorded individually. Our data consist of the workshop session recordings up to the beginning of the building of the final prototypes. The video recordings were made using a GoPro action camcorder, placed on a floor-standing tripod, and a separate wireless lavalier microphone. The camera was positioned at a high side angle to capture the teams’ actions as fully as possible. The first author was present during every workshop session and made observations and field notes to support an in-depth data analysis. We also collected the sketches and documents created by the teams and photographed the teams’ inventions and prototypes. The three analyzed teams and the video data for each team are presented in Table 1. These teams were selected on the basis of the completeness of the video data. All teams were named according to their inventions.

Table 1 Description of the co-invention teams and video data
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To answer our research questions, we divided our analysis into two interlinked parts. Firstly, we investigated the teams’ knowledge creation processes by tracing their enacted application of maker practices, which allowed us to capture the flow of the teams’ co-invention processes and the development of epistemic objects. Secondly, we analyzed how teacher and peer tutor student engagement with the teams affected the co-invention processes and the application of maker practices. As our primary analysis method, we utilized and further developed the Making-Process-Rug video analysis framework (Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2023). The framework provides a systematic approach to examine situationally interleaving social and material aspects of knowledge-creating learning from video data. In particular, it enables portrayals of the temporal and dynamic trajectories of collaborative learning and the epistemic practices involved in making artifacts (Hakkarainen & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, 2022; Hmelo-Silver et al., 2011; Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b).

The Making-Process-Rug video analysis method relies on systematic coding of video data through a pre-defined coding scheme. For this study, the coding scheme was constructed around five analysis themes: design process practices, defined through the framework for categorization of design process practices through primary verbal and embodied co-design and co-making actions that we have intensively developed in our previous studies (Davies et al., 2023; Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b); computing, product design, and scientific practices that we had identified as key dimensions of the epistemic architecture of maker practices (Davies et al., 2023); and teacher and tutor student engagement with the teams. The data were coded simultaneously for all analytic themes. Detailed descriptions of the pre-defined coding scheme, its analytic themes, units of analysis, coding categories, codes, and their explanations are presented in Table 2. Design process practices, as well as teacher and tutor student engagement, were analyzed in 3-min segments. This, albeit relatively coarse, segmentation of data has proven to provide a good overall insight into the teams’ design and making processes in co-invention projects (Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2023). The application of computer engineering, product design, and science practices, in turn, were analyzed by systematically identifying discussions and expressions of a particular dimension of these practices within each 3-min segment.

Table 2 The pre-defined coding scheme used in the video data analysis
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The coding was done using the ELAN multimedia annotator. The first author of the paper conducted the analysis. The interpretations and findings were then subjected to further discussions with the other authors to ensure mutual agreement. To increase the reliability of the data analysis, the first two sessions of the SleepSound team’s video data were also independently coded by the second author. Both the first and second authors were involved in developing the coding scheme for the design process practices, and they implemented the Making-Process-Rug methodology in practice in our previous studies and, therefore, had a good understanding of it. Inter-rater reliability (IRR) was calculated utilizing the standard error Cohen’s kappa (Cohen, 1960), which was 0.865 with a low standard error of 0.063, indicating almost perfect agreement (Landis & Koch, 1977).

This systematic, multi-faceted coding enabled the capture of knowledge and embodied aspects of advancing epistemic objects in co-design. From the categorized data, graphical timeline charts (i.e., co-invention process rugs) were constructed for each team’s processes, rendering many patterns in the data visible in relation to all our research questions. Utilizing these visualizations, we refined our analysis by investigating the interrelations of the activities in the different analysis themes.

Findings

In the following, we will present our findings in accordance with our main research questions. We will start by characterizing the teams’ overall co-invention processes and examine student teams’ knowledge creation in relation to the application of maker practices and the construction of epistemic objects. Subsequently, we will present our results on how teacher and tutor student engagement affected the teams’ co-invention processes.

Maker practices and development of epistemic objects in the student teams’ co-invention processes

To gain an overall understanding of the teams’ co-invention processes, we built visual timelines, “co-invention process rugs” (Fig. 1), that represent the teams’ entire co-invention processes in 3-min segments across all of our analytic themes: as a design and making process through design process practices; application of scientific, computer engineering, and product design practices within every segment; and engagement of teachers and tutor students with the team. Every design session is separated with a blank horizontal stripe, with the first session being on top. For stripes where both verbal and embodied practices co-occur in design process practices, the verbal design process practice is presented on the left side of the segment and the embodied practice on the right. More detailed information on how to interpret the co-invention process rugs is provided in the Appendix.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The teams’ co-invention process rugs: application of the design-process, computer engineering, product design, and science practices, and teacher and peer tutor engagement with the teams

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Figure 1 reveals that all teams went through a cyclical design and making process, where verbal design process practices of ideation (pink) alternated with analysis and evaluation (violet) and process organizing (turquoise). Embodied design process practices of sketching (light green), material or mechanical experimenting (bright green), and material model making (dark green) often occurred together with or immediately after ideation, which highlights the importance of working with concrete materials and using embodied design practices to advance the epistemic objects being pursued. Based on our on-site observations, all teams focused on a shared epistemic object, conveying their ideas to each other through sketches and prototypes. The students also recognized the sometimes problematic, question-generating nature of the epistemic objects, as demonstrated in the following short conversation between SleepSound team member Robin and a student from another team, Cathy, during the fourth design session:

Robin: This has a lot of problems that crop up every time a solution emerges.

Cathy: I think that you need to take a simple enough version of it [the invention] that you know you can make. When you have gotten that fully designed, then you can start adding to it. Make a version that definitely works first.

The teams displayed notable variation in the application of computer engineering and product design practices. Figure 1 shows that the Button Presser team applied these practices significantly less than the other two. Based on our observations from the video data and on-site, the boys on the Button Presser team had difficulties concentrating on the task for more than approximately 1 min at a time. Their conversations and focus often drifted to other topics, although they were committed to the task. These concentration problems particularly affected the deeper evaluation and development of the invention from a product design perspective. The SleepSound team, in contrast, had the most balanced knowledge-creation process in terms of the overall application of computer engineering and product design practices, which can be observed in Fig. 1. The Sunny team’s initial idea was to build a portable water turbine that would generate enough energy to charge mobile devices. The team concentrated on this idea intensively for the first two sessions. Figure 1 indicates how, during these sessions, their overall application of product design practices was very active. When teachers directed the team toward making a solar panel charger, the application of these practices declined. Until this point, they had been working on and maintaining a joint understanding of their epistemic object with multifaceted knowledge and visions involved that engaged them in active knowledge creation. Based on our on-site observations, the teacher-introduced idea to design the solar panel and a case for it caused the team to simplify their epistemic object, discarding the complex knowledge and visions involved. Furthermore, the new direction of the invention design did not trigger sufficiently new or complex design challenges to initiate deeper knowledge-creation activities.

During the fifth design session, the teams were instructed to create a digital 3D model of their invention, or part of it, using the Tinkercad 3D modeling application. Based on our on-site observations, this task interrupted the co-invention processes. From Fig. 1, it can be observed that nearly all knowledge-creation activities based on engineering practices halted during digital model-making. This was particularly disruptive for the SleepSound and Sunny teams, which had engaged in these practices intensively before the 3D modeling activities. Additionally, the teams were distracted from their co-invention processes by off-task activities, indicated with light grey in design process practices in Fig. 1. However, the amount of off-task activity varied between the teams. The Button Presser team had off-task activity in 22.1% (N = 113) of the 3-min segments, while the Sunny team spent 6.6% (N = 122) and the SleepSound team 12.2% (N = 115) of their respective projects engaged in off-task activities.

Figure 1 also reveals more detailed results on how the teams applied different dimensions of computer engineering and product design practices. In terms of product design practices, the SleepSound and Sunny teams paid particular attention to the functional suitability and performance efficiency of their ideas. Both teams also applied the other three product design practices in several segments. The Sunny team concentrated mainly on product design practices throughout their co-invention process, likely because their invention was significantly less technology-oriented. The Button Presser team, in contrast, paid very little attention to the product design aspects of their invention and concentrated mainly on computer engineering, although their invention had mechanical functionality. Compared with the other two teams, they focused hardly at all on usability, ergonomics, and user experience and not at all on the reliability and maintainability of their invention.

In terms of science practices, the intensity of application and presence of different themes varied between the teams. Drawing from Fig. 1, the Button Presser team applied science practices in 17 of the 3-min segments in their co-invention process rug, the SleepSound team in 10, and the Sunny team in 20. The Button Presser team focused on science practices mainly during the third session while experimenting with possible mechanical solutions for their invention. The SleepSound team, in contrast, applied science practices mainly during the first and third sessions. The Sunny team concentrated intensively on the science theme, especially during their first session. Their initial idea of a portable water turbine inspired them to examine water turbines’ physical properties and how they could be scaled down into a portable size. In the following discussion, the team contemplates the possible size of the charger container (session 1, stripe 6). The discussion demonstrates how the physics concept of electromagnetism and the properties of electromagnetic coils were directly intertwined with the ideation of their invention and, thus, the construction of their epistemic object. Furthermore, the data excerpt also reveals how the team utilized sketching and a concrete magnet to convey their ideas to the other team members, highlighting the importance of using embodied design process practices and working with concrete materials to advance the shared epistemic object.

Mary: If it would be like this shape, [draws a sketch] and it would have the things inside.

Elisa: Yes, but it would have to be quite tall, like this [shows the height with her fingers], so the magnet would fit inside.

Mary: The magnet isn’t that big, is it?

Elisa: Can it be like that high? [points to the magnet bar on the table]

Mary: It would be at least this high. [Takes the magnet and shows about double the height of the magnet and then adjusts her sketch to that height]

Elisa: Or can it be smaller?

Gary: It only depends on how strong the magnet is, how many loops of the wire there are in the coil, and how thick the wire is.

Elisa: So, the thicker the wire and the more loops, the faster it spins?

Gary: No, it produces more electricity. Also, [it depends on] how close the coil is to the magnet.

Figure 1 shows the close relationship between the embodied design process practices of sketching (light green) and experimenting (bright green and bright blue) and the application of product design, computer engineering, and science practices, where these practices often occur together. In the SleepSound team, product design practices were applied in every segment, where sketching was the most prominent embodied design process practice. Similarly, the Sunny team applied product design practices in all but three segments of sketching. The Button Presser team used sketching less than the two other teams, and what they produced did not relate as clearly to the application of product design practices. However, in their co-invention process, material or mechanical experimenting was always accompanied by the application of product design practices, and digital experimenting was always associated with computer engineering practices. This close interrelation of experimenting and application of product design and computer engineering practices was also present in the processes seen in the Sunny and SleepSound teams. Furthermore, an embodied design process practice was also present in nearly all segments where science practices were applied. Science practices were also closely connected to the application of product design practices, which very often occurred together. Figure 1 suggests that model-making (dark green) did not have as clear a connection to the application of computer engineering, product design, or science practices. However, Fig. 1 shows that model-making activities were often followed by a period of analysis (violet) and dense application of these practices. These findings are particularly significant because they indicate the importance of engaging students in embodied design process practices to promote deep and multi-dimensional knowledge-creation activities. Through embodied design process practices, the teams instantiated their epistemic objects in material forms that helped them maintain joint understanding and, perhaps most importantly, invited further inquiries and contributions.

Finally, we investigated the intensity of application of the science, computer engineering, and product design practices, that is, how many dimensions of these practices the teams applied in the same 3-min segment. Both similarities and notable differences between the teams in the amount and the intensity of application of these practices can be observed in Fig. 1. The Button Presser and Sunny teams applied these practices in approximately half of all 3-min segments, whereas the SleepSound team did so in little over two-thirds of the 3-min segments of their process. The Button Presser and Sunny teams applied up to five dimensions of science, computer engineering, and product design practices in the same segment. They also had notable similarities in the proportions of how many dimensions they applied simultaneously. Both teams applied two or more dimensions in just under 60% of the segments where these practices were applied, and more than three dimensions were applied in approximately one-third of these segments. In contrast to the other two teams, not only did the SleepSound team apply science, computer engineering, and product design practices more often, but the intensity of the application of these practices was also notably higher than in the other two teams. They applied up to seven dimensions of these practices in one 3-min segment. Furthermore, they applied two or more dimensions in approximately three-quarters of the segments where these practices were applied and three or more in just over half of them.

Teacher and peer tutor engagement

As our second research question, we looked into how the teams’ application of maker practices and the flow of their co-invention processes unfolded with and without teacher or peer tutor engagement. To further analyze teams’ application of maker practices with and without teacher and/or peer tutor engagement, Fig. 2 was generated. In this figure, the co-invention process rugs of Fig. 1 were rearranged in terms of teacher and tutor engagement with the teams to reveal their impact on the teams’ co-invention processes. Starting from the top, Fig. 2 first presents the segments where both teacher and tutor student(s) engaged with a team in the chronological order in which they occurred. The second part of the figure displays the segments in chronological order. First, it shows the segments where only a teacher was engaged with the team. Next, it displays the segments where one or more tutor students were engaged with the team. Finally, it shows the segments where neither teachers nor tutor students were present. Thus, in Fig. 2, the temporal sequence of the 3-min segments is only retained within the four categories of teacher and tutor student presence.

A teacher visited each team frequently but, in most cases, only for a few minutes (Fig. 2). However, there was an exception for each team. In regard to the Button Presser team, the teacher spent most of the second half of the second session and nearly the whole third session with the team. Similarly, with the Sunny team, the teacher spent almost 20 min without interruption toward the end of the third session and nearly the entire fourth session with them. In regard to the SleepSound team, the teacher spent most of the second half of the fifth session working with the team. In all three teams, this more intense teacher engagement was related to a phase where the invention process moved from initial, vague design ideas toward more concrete inventions. The Button Presser team and the teacher first analyzed the team’s ideas together and then moved on to planning how the mechanical functionality of the invention could be manufactured. For the Sunny team, this period was when the team, guided by the teacher, moved from the idea of a water-turbine-driven charger to the solar panel and decided on what parts of it they would make as a prototype and how. The SleepSound team had already refined their ideas and had a clearer understanding of the final product and its features. The teacher helped them select materials and manufacturing techniques, thus helping them advance their epistemic object toward making a concrete artifact.

Figure 2, supported by our on-site observations, reveals how teacher engagement related differently to the application of design process practices in each team. However, in all the teams, the teacher played a practical role when engaging in their co-invention processes. In regard to the Button Presser team, the teacher helped them refine their ideas and finalize their invention mainly through analysis, discussions about manufacturing, and material and digital experimentation. The teacher also helped the team organize their process. For the Sunny team, the teacher played a more analytic role in the early stages of the process but later concentrated mainly on process organizing in close collaboration with the team. In regard to the SleepSound team, the teacher’s engagement was almost solely related to process organizing or very practical discussions on making a prototype. The SleepSound team had a very self-driven approach to its work: The team was striving to solve design problems by itself and be open to new design solutions. The following discussion (session 4, stripes 6 and 7) demonstrates how they strove to solve problems by themselves before seeking assistance and how they decided when to ask for help.

Maureen: We can always ask for help.

Robin: Yes, we can ask for help, but I don’t know if they know any better either. That is always the problem. If we can’t find the solution by ourselves, it doesn’t necessarily pay to trust them [being able to help]. If we don’t know, it’s always possible that they don’t know either. So, it’s always better to try to find out ourselves. If we don’t have any chance of solving it [the design problem], then we should ask [for help].

Maureen: Yes.

Robin: Do we have any other solutions to this problem? We could take another route altogether, change our approach completely. If this one doesn’t work, we will have to come up with another solution.

Fig. 2.
figure 2

Interrelations of teacher and peer tutor engagement with design-process, computer engineering, product design, and science practices

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When only a tutor student was helping the teams, they still focused a lot on analyzing their design ideas, as shown in Fig. 2. However, the tutor students also engaged actively in the processes of ideation and making, i.e., pursuing the teams’ epistemic objects. Based on our on-site observations, the tutor students became almost like team members and strove to contribute to the teams’ knowledge-creation process and inventions. However, they were still constantly aware of their role as helpers. In regard to the SleepSound team in particular, the tutor student helped them organize their process. Finally, when both a teacher and a tutor student were present in a team, the focus was mainly on analyzing the teams’ ideas and related design constraints.

Figure 2 also reveals that, in teams that had no problems concentrating on the design task (Sunny and SleepSound), teacher presence did not appear to have been vital to the application of science, computer engineering, and product design practices. In these teams, application of these practices occurred both with a teacher and when the teams were working on their own. In the SleepSound team, science practices were applied only when the team worked on their own. In contrast, in the Button Presser team, which struggled to maintain high concentration, the teacher was engaged in more than half of the segments where these practices were applied.

In contrast, Fig. 2 suggests that peer tutor students supported the application of computer engineering and product design practices in all three teams. Tutor students worked with the teams for only one session. Therefore, the overall proportion of the application of the computer engineering and product design practices that occurred with them is not very high. However, the time that the tutor students spent with the teams was very active in terms of the application of these practices. Based on our on-site observations, the tutor students sparked the knowledge-creation activities by asking well-specified questions about the invention, encouraging the teams to refine their ideas and, thus, to further develop their epistemic objects. However, they also engaged in teams’ knowledge creation and ideation processes by proposing possible solutions to and new perspectives on existing design problems. Figure 2 reveals, in contrast, that very little, if any, science practices were applied when a tutor student was present in a team, perhaps indicating that their expertise was more closely related to computer engineering and product design.

Figure 2 also enabled us to analyze the relations between teacher or peer tutor support and the intensity of the application of maker practices. For the Button Presser team, teacher or tutor student support appears to have been of the essence in promoting the application of more than one theme of computer engineering, product design, and science practices. This relation can be observed in nearly all instances in Fig. 2, other than during the digital experimenting (dark blue) in the final design session (see also Fig. 1). In contrast to the other two teams, the teachers engaged much more in embodied product design practices with the Button Presser team. The teachers used their pedagogical expertise to help the boys of the team, in particular, focus on the task and further develop their epistemic object by introducing and encouraging them to do mechanical experimentation to advance their design ideas. As shown in Fig. 3, a teacher engaged the boys from the Button Presser team in experimenting with the possible mechanical functionality of the invention using an old prototype (session 3, stripe 8). This experimentation sparked some of the team’s most intense applications of science, computer engineering, and product design practices.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Teacher engaging the Button Presser team in mechanical experimentation

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The Sunny team also benefited from teacher and peer tutor support. They applied multiple dimensions of engineering practices more often with a teacher or a peer tutor than when working on their own. However, in contrast to the Button Presser team, they were also clearly able to do so on their own. In regard to the most self-driven team of the three, SleepSound, the relationship between peer tutor support and the intensity of the knowledge-creation activities through engineering practices was very similar to that in the other two teams. However, in contrast to the other two teams, they had their densest application of engineering practices without teacher engagement with the team—when either working on their own or with a peer tutor.

Discussion

This present study provides a holistic perspective on knowledge creation through maker-centered learning activities by systematically examining the co-invention processes of student teams from several intertwined perspectives of nature, flow, and the interrelations between different dimensions of maker practices and the effects of teacher and peer tutor engagement. This study investigated knowledge creation in the co-invention projects of three teams of 13–14-year-old students (seventh graders) who participated in a co-invention project at a public school in [removed for anonymity]. Specifically, we focused on (1) how the teams applied various dimensions of maker practices in their co-invention processes and (2) how the teams’ application of maker practices and the flow of their co-invention processes unfolded with and without teacher or peer tutor engagement. Our analysis relied on video data and on-site observations of the student teams’ co-invention processes, utilizing and further developing the visual Maker-Process-Rug video data analysis framework.

Our analysis revealed both similarities and notable differences in the intensity of the teams’ knowledge-creation activities and how they were distributed between different maker practices throughout their co-invention projects. The intensity of application of the science, computer engineering, and product design practices varied with from one to seven dimensions of these practices being applied within the same 3-min segment of data and with all teams being able to apply at least five dimensions within the same segment. It must be noted, however, that one team had difficulty maintaining full concentration on the task, and another team’s design solution was overly simplified and thus affected the team’s engagement in deeper, intense knowledge-creation activities. Regardless of these difficulties, all teams applied science, computer engineering, and product design practices in at least half and up to just over two-thirds of the segments analyzed. Thus, our findings suggest that open-ended co-invention projects offer students ample opportunities to practice knowledge creation. Our findings also strongly suggest that embodied design process practices are crucial for student teams to advance their shared epistemic objects and inspire and support the application of the other maker practices. Furthermore, our analysis indicates the close connection between science and product design practices, which often occur together. However, we observed how nearly all knowledge-creation activities through maker practices halted when the teams were required to engage in a pre-configured task of 3D modelling their designs.

That said, our investigation revealed how teachers can help student teams advance their co-invention processes by assisting them in moving from vague initial ideas to more concrete ones through analytic discussions and skillful scaffolding of the processes. The analysis revealed how teachers assisted struggling team members in focusing on a design task by engaging them in experimentation to refine their design ideas. However, we also observed how too much teacher direction can lead to oversimplifying the invention, thus reducing the design challenges to a level that does not initiate the in-depth pursuit of knowledge creation. Peer tutor students, according to our findings, effectively support knowledge creation through the application of computer engineering and product design practices. What was especially valuable was their ability to blend into the inventor teams as equal team members while being aware of their role as peer tutors, asking well-specified questions, suggesting alternative solutions, and encouraging the teams to refine their ideas. Finally, our findings indicated that, if student teams were able to maintain concentration on the co-invention task, they were well able to engage in dense and multi-faceted knowledge creation without any teacher or peer support.

Overall, the present study makes multi-faceted contributions to CSCL literature. The study assists in expanding the scope of CSCL research toward sociomaterially mediated knowledge creation beyond already well-established and highly regarded practices of knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2021) and interactive meaning-making (Suthers, 2021). Furthermore, the study traces the collaborative learning processes taking place around digital devices within studio environments (Sawyer, 2017) that emerging makerspaces provide for schools. Similar to knowledge building, maker-based knowledge creation processes were open-ended, nonlinear, and self-organized in nature and could not have been rigidly scripted and pre-determined (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014). In the present case, inventing a “smart product” was the only constraint. The nonlinear and unpredictable flow of the making process requires sensitivity and openness to new directions and ideas in pedagogical decision-making (Gutwill et al., 2015; Sawyer, 2011; Viilo et al., 2018). Moreover, to understand epistemic aspects of knowledge creation processes, we examined artifacts constructed by student teams as dynamic epistemic objects, which assisted the teams’ future-oriented co-creative efforts. Embodied design practices of sketching, making, and experimenting were of the essence to inspire and deepen knowledge creation and advancement of epistemic objects. The present investigation involved further developing a process-rug methodology, which enables refined analysis of embodied and verbal aspects of epistemic objects as well as epistemic practices emerging from the student teams’ inventive efforts. We expanded the process-rug methodology to analyze multifaceted aspects of the student teams’ co-invention processes simultaneously through the most prominent design process practices, as applied in our previous investigations (e.g., Riikonen, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, et al., 2020b), and on the basis of occurrence to trace the application of other maker practices involved as well as teacher and tutor student engagement with the teams. This more refined and multidimensional process-rug analysis depicted co-invention processes as iterative and practice-based processes, where computer engineering, product design, and science were deeply entangled with design practices. The final contribution may be the present parallel emphasis of the roles of both teachers and tutors in fostering student teams’ maker projects.

Our findings revealed the potential of co-invention as a pedagogical approach to engage students in dense knowledge-creation activities. Furthermore, our findings supported and further refined the results of previous studies (Blikstein, 2013; Mehto, Riikonen, Hakkarainen, et al., 2020a; Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014) on how embodied design process practices of sketching, practical experimenting, and working with concrete materials are of the utmost importance to the emergence of knowledge-creating learning activities. Based on our findings, we argue, in accordance with previous researchers (Beltagui et al., 2023; Sawyer, 2011; Vossoughi et al., 2021), that special attention should be paid to when and how digital design tools and tasks are introduced and used in co-invention processes. This is essential to avoid hindering the students’ ability to engage in knowledge creation owing to pre-scripted activities that are disconnected from the teams’ unfolding self-organized activities and thus do not foster the advancement of their epistemic objects. Experiences of the present investigation indicate the productivity of engaging primary school students in pursuing relatively open-ended invention challenges. It is educationally very valuable to learn to work with such expanded epistemic objects rather than merely focus on learning pre-determined subject-specific content or using pre-given digital technologies. The open-ended invention practices in question are rarely available in regular school settings. Such projects may go in multiple unforeseen directions, simultaneously requiring learning complex, unfamiliar knowledge and applying tools and practices that challenge students and their tutors and teachers.

The present study has certain limitations. As a multiple case study, it addressed only three student teams’ co-invention processes. The content-rich video data enabled a detailed level of analysis and revealed similarities and differences across the cases. The multi-level video analysis proved an effective method for unfolding the patterns and interrelations of the multiple dimensions investigated simultaneously, retaining the holistic nature of the co-invention processes. Furthermore, the in situ observations helped us confirm and further deepen the findings of the video data analysis. Our results could offer opportunities to develop effective pedagogical approaches for open-ended invention projects as well as to encourage stakeholders in the field of education to move toward emphasizing the importance of our youth learning skills of knowledge creation and innovation instead of adopting pre-given information and solving pre-set textbook problems.