# Why a Maker in Residence (values and benefits)

The Maker in Residence format is one of the possible ways to engage makers and designers in an intense work and acceleration process.

This special edition was structured in order to create an active and participatory link between **online and offline collaboration**.

The dualism between these two dimensions is a central point in **opencare** project. On the one hand online collaboration can help getting inspiration; learning from all around the world experiences; finding technical documentation, forking and contributing to different projects.

The possibility to reside for a period of time in a makerspace, on the other hand, gives the possibility to actively collaborate with people, often being triggered to take a step forward; to use tools and materials that can act as a mind stimulus; to iterate project development day by day; to experience the so-called tacit knowledge, which is based on observation of other makers working, learning from their diffuse competencies and skills repository.

* link: [Why we are making it](https://edgeryders.eu/t/call-for-applications-opencare-maker-in-residence/785)

> **info no-icon** **Why we’re doing the opencare Maker in Residence**
>
> Through this special edition of residency we are trying to create an active and participatory link between the online and offline collaboration.
>
> On one hand **online collaboration** is a great experience: you can get inspiration by reading stories, learning from all around the world experiences, finding technical documentation, forking and contributing to different projects …
>
> On the other hand, the **live (aka "offline") experience** (working in a makerspace / fablab) will add some other things:
>
> * intense physical experience: smelling the laser in the morning will push you :wink:
> * human in flesh and blood (AFK) can use different kind of communications channels (they can also make faces without using emoticons)
>
>   people around us can act as serendipity triggers (I.E. “Did you know that you can do this ..”)
> * having a lot of materials and tools at hand can foster your ingenuity  
>
>   iteration is key: discard a yesterday idea and try the today new one
> * you’re not alone: working in your office is great, but having people around you is awesome!
> * tacit knowledge: looking others makers (designers, artists, tinkerers, ...) working around you will ... making around you is an hidden but huge diffuse competence and skills repository
> * explore different point of view about your project:
>
>   [There’s the sxxx you know, the sxxx you know you don’t know, and the sxxx you don’t know you don’t know.](http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing)
> * **online + offline = GREAT THINGS**!