Building Makerspace Momentum Brick by Brick

For Noelle Conover and her family, a gift to Carnegie Mellon University was a leap of faith with deep, personal meaning. Six years later, the gift has had an outsized impact, inspiring new ways to support hands-on learning for kids. It’s turned a tragedy into part of a global initiative to learn (and, in more ways than one, heal) with Lego — and keep alive the memory of one special child.

Origins of a Makerspace Movement

Matt Conover has been described as a welcoming friend, curious learner, athlete and optimist. It’s how he’s remembered by his mother Noelle Conover after he passed away from non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2002 at age 12.

The heartbreaking death of her bright and boisterous boy devastated Noelle, a 1982 graduate of Dietrich College, her husband David, a 1979 and 1980 College of Engineering graduate, and Matt’s three siblings. In the years following his death, friends and neighbors stopped Noelle and spoke solemnly of Matt’s passing. Noelle realized Matt would be defined by his death instead of his boundlessly energetic life, and she needed to change that legacy.

“There were only two ways to handle the situation: Roll over and tap out, be bitter, angry and mad at the world, or keep his name and his vision alive,” Noelle says. “He’s not here anymore, so doing that in a way that puts a smile on everybody’s face is on me now.”

The Conovers started by funding several small projects like media carts in pediatric hospitals, which created a spark. More inspiration came through a visit to the IDeATe Collaborative Making Facility in the basement of CMU’s Hunt Library with Dean of University Libraries Keith Webster. It is a space that exudes everything Matt loved, prompting the Conovers to fund similar makerspaces in Matt’s elementary school and six other spaces around their school district in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon.

Makerspaces resonated as “very Matt” to the Conovers, and felt like the right way to keep his memory alive. So Noelle spearheaded the formation of Matt’s Maker Space, a nonprofit with the goal to create more educational spaces for kids that blend technology, building and creative activities.

A typical space is fun and welcoming, located in a school and includes materials and tools such as robotics, building materials, Lego, laser cutters and 3D printers. Some can go beyond traditional science and engineering projects to include artistic expression through crafts, sewing or music, or virtual reality experiences.

After the installations in 2017, the conversations about Matt shifted. Stories from friends and neighbors replaced sadness with inspiration and excitement for the makerspaces named for him.

“Before this, people would come up to me in the grocery store and say ‘I'm so sorry you lost your child.’” Noelle says. “Now people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, my child is in your makerspace! Can I just tell you that they're learning in a different way?’ Those kinds of stories  —  that's what I want. It’s how the whole world can know about Matt.”

Collective Elevation

Matt’s Maker Space has installed dozens of new spaces in schools as well as in community centers and health care facilities. The 58th Matt’s Maker Space will open in 2025, extending the organization’s reach to thousands of kids in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Today, the Conovers are not the major funders of their own effort; they receive support from a wide range of funders to catalyze the makerspace movement. And, the family continues to give to other organizations with a “raise all ships” philosophy around creativity and kids. Their vision has grabbed the interest of dozens of funders and partners, and consistently garnered support to expand hands-on learning opportunities well beyond what they could do on their own.

The heart of this untraditional approach to philanthropy is Noelle, and her knack for generating excitement and creating mutually beneficial relationships. The result is that Matt’s Maker Space grows, communities are served and everyone wins.

Carnegie Mellon became one of the Conovers’ “raise-all-ships” partners in 2019. The first Conover gift catalyzed support and opportunities for Matt’s Maker Space through the university’s Leonard Gelfand Center for Service Learning and Outreach. The Gelfand Center became a central point to orchestrate CMU talents to create a bespoke makerspace curriculum. Student workers, faculty and staff from Heinz College signed on to consult with Matt’s Maker Space to create a searchable bank of makerspace lessons for educators.

The Matt’s Maker Space project became a favorite among many across the university. The partnership with CMU provided credibility and support in the technology and innovation spaces for Matt’s Maker Space, and a fresh network of people excited by the mission. As people across CMU signed on, new ideas for extended activities emerged that resonated with the Conovers as avenues that felt “very Matt.”

Symbiotic Growth

“(Noelle and the Conover family’s) thoughtful, sustainable, collaborative giving creates these really exciting opportunities, and that impact is really big. We’ve given students opportunities to do community engaged work, specifically that sparks a love of STEM learning in K-12 communities,” says Mimi Wertheimer, director of student instructor development and K-12 community partnership at the Gelfand Center.

Mimi saw how easily anything to do with Noelle’s projects captured people’s hearts. CMU collaborators were excited to contribute their time and expertise. The goals for the initial gift were exceeded, with student workers staying on with Matt’s Maker Space to help with social media posts or work in spaces. If Matt’s Maker Space had a need, CMU had someone who could help, and was more than happy to do so.

Seeing how people signed on to the mission, it was clear that the gift made an impact on everyone involved, far beyond its monetary value.

“We’ve made a lot happen, and Noelle’s collaborative and communicative spirit laid the foundation for even more opportunity moving ahead,” Mimi says. “At the point the window of initial gift was ending, I called Noelle and said, ‘I've got this exciting opportunity for us to work with this nonprofit in the UK. It’s a Lego thing, and I think you’ll really love it.’”

“Well, everyone loves Lego,” Noelle says. “But it’s also the kind of quirky, wonderful and inclusive opportunity that I love, too. That’s why we signed on for Project Baseplate.”

Seeding Project Baseplate

Lego has always been an informal way for kids to gather and create. Project Baseplate is an innovation lab and community hub out of the Center for Transformational Play that provides a formalized roadmap to use Lego to address social and emotional learning through play. Originally based on research from the UK showing positive impacts on neurodivergent children’s social skills, Project Baseplate’s core belief is that Lego helps all kids develop in the realm of emotional intelligence, improving teamwork, increasing confidence and making new friends.

This initiative captured interest from other CMU communities, too. The Entertainment Technology Center was pivotal in the initial launch of Project Baseplate, and provides ongoing support. Lindsay Foreman, the Simon Initiative’s K-12 coordinator, was one of the first educators trained under Project Baseplate and ran one of the earliest pilots at Pittsburgh Public Schools. Then, she passed the torch to students from The Gelfand Center, who continue to facilitate brick clubs around the Pittsburgh area.

“We’re all connecting the dots with each other, we’re not working in a vacuum,” Mimi says of the CMU collaboration. “As more students get involved, we see so many opportunities for brick clubs leading to even more community collaborations.”

The renewed funding commitment from the Conovers builds on the curriculum hosted by Matt’s Maker Space with training for teachers or after-school care providers to start brick clubs using proven techniques, and kits with the supplies necessary to do so. A network for support from funders, in addition to funds from the Conovers, boosts additional efforts, including research on the initiatives so good ideas can spread.

Over 100 educators have been trained, and they’re leading Project Baseplate brick clubs serving hundreds of students primarily in southwestern Pennsylvania, but beginning to spread as far as Michigan and Colorado. Emily Sanders, the training director for Matt’s Maker Space, coaches brick club leaders, and she sees firsthand how LEGO fosters significant growth in students she works with.

“Brick clubs offer a structured approach to learn through play. It’s easy to get why it’s fun, but the impact on social skills goes way beyond what even I initially expected,” Emily says. “We’re seeing kids developing as leaders and communicators. They’re making new friends and gaining confidence. Brick clubs also support neurodivergent learners, and offer a therapeutic approach for social skills that’s needed after the pandemic. These are all tools we didn’t have before, and now more kids can access them with every new brick club leader we’re able to train.”

Those little plastic bricks that captured Matt Conover’s imagination many years ago are now one more part of his legacy of innovation and creativity through play.

“The reason we wanted to fund Project Baseplate is I have seen it in action already,” Noelle says. “I see Lego kids in our spaces, and they are the ones I have a heart for. Lego helps kids feel they have something important to say, and Matt would have wanted to be a part of a brick club! We have 60  places to start these Lego clubs now, so we’ll be able to get the word out about this, launch it and help it proliferate from there.”