Why School MakerSpaces are Using Whiteboard Paint for “Blueprint Walls”

Why Smart Boards Fail in the MakerSpace

The “Blueprint Wall”: Supporting the Engineering Design Process

• The Standard: The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) mandate that students engage in the “Engineering Design Process,” which requires a strong emphasis on modeling, prototyping, and iteration.
• The Application: You can’t effectively prototype a four-foot robotics chassis on a small piece of drafting paper. Instead, STEM students need “blueprint walls” — huge vertical surfaces where they can draw 1:1 scale models, erase them, and iterate instantly.
• Scale Matters: When students need to draw 1:1 scale models of their projects (e.g., CO2 dragsters or VEX robots), a 4 x 8 whiteboard just isn’t big enough to accommodate the images. In contrast, a “blueprint wall” coated with dry erase paint provides more than enough room for students to work out their ideas in full.
• Iteration: The core of the STEM design process is trying, failing, and trying again in a continuous cycle of experimentation. The “non-permanent” nature of a whiteboard wall encourages students to sketch, wipe away, and redesign their ideas without the permanence or waste produced by using drafting paper.
• Data Tracking: Physics and chemistry students can use the lab’s large, open-ended whiteboard walls to map out large-scale scatter plots and trajectory equations during live experiments. As with scale models, the vast area of a whiteboard wall allows students to write and draw to their heart’s content when doing such work.

Chemical and Impact Resistance: Not All Whiteboards Are Created Equal

• Warning: Schools should avoid installing cheap adhesive whiteboard films in their labs. These products melt, peel, and react poorly to heat and chemical exposure. They’re often more textured than whiteboard paint, so they reduce pen glide and cause thin-tipped dry erase markers to skip. Over time, erasing whiteboard films may also cause more ghosting to occur than would occur with dry erase paint due to their lower-quality chemical composition.

Three Ways to Use Whiteboard Paint in Your STEM Lab

1. The Workbench Top: Don’t just paint the walls of your lab. Paint the tops of your wooden or steel workbenches as well so that students can write measurements and draw diagrams right next to the work they’re doing. Whiteboard paint applied on workbench surfaces also allows students to make notes and brainstorm ideas and images for their STEM projects.

2. The Tool Shadow Board: Apply dry ease paint to the wall behind your hand and power tools. Then draw outlines or shadows of the tools so students know exactly where to return their hammers, screwdrivers, clamps, and wrenches.

3. The 360-Degree Ideation Room: Coat all four walls of your STEM lab to allow multiple robotics teams and others to work in the same room at the same time without fighting over whiteboard space. The walls’ vast surfaces can accommodate all the text and image groups students create as they work together on the same project.