Background:
Hands-on making (e.g., “Maker”) has become prevalent in current educational settings. To understand the role that students’ epistemic curiosity plays in hands-on making contests, this study explored its correlation to students’ positive affect and continuance intention to participate in a hands-on making contest called “PowerTech”. To circumvent parent involvement, PowerTech requires students to produce miniatures in the morning and use the miniatures to take part in relay racing and tug-of-war competitions in the afternoon.

Material and methods:
Data from 514 individuals were collected and subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling by AMOS 20.

Results:
The results revealed that the two types of epistemic curiosity (EC), interest (I-type) and informational deprivation type (D-type), played a mediating role in bonding participants’ positive affect and their continuance intention to join a hands-on making contest.

Conclusions:
The implication of this study suggests that students’ epistemic curiosity can be aroused in the process of participating in competitive hands-on making contests such as PowerTech.