Education

Maker Education is such a valuable role. These stories will bring you the latest information and tales of maker educators who area spreading the maker mindset. Help others learn how to make things or how to think like a maker at makerspaces, schools, universities, and local communities. The importance of maker education can not be understated. We appreciate our educators.

Materials library lets you play with exotic samples

Materials library lets you play with exotic samples

If you’re interested in materials science, design, architecture, and/or chemistry, and you live in Austin or the central Texas area, you should not miss the UT Austin School of Architecture Materials Lab, located in room 3.102 of the West Mall Office Building on The University of Texas Campus. They’re closed this week for Spring Break, but are normally open from 9-5 every weekday. It’s open to the public, and is chock-a-block with physical samples of all kinds of exotic materials that would otherwise be difficult to get your hands on in small quantities. Anyone can poke around, and registered students can check out samples just like a book-library.

If you’re not in the area, the UTSOA Materials Lab is building an online database of its collection organized by composition, form, properties, process, and application. And although they don’t have photos of all the samples uploaded yet, it’s still fascinating browsing.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan
Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 4

Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 4

In this series, “Letters from the Fab Academy,” Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI community arts space, shares his experiences with the Fab Academy, a distributed learning collaborative, built on the infrastructure of the Fab Lab network. — Gareth 3D Scanning By Shawn Wallace Victor Freundt prints a project using the ZCorp printer […]

Continue Reading Gareth Branwyn2
Electric cupcakes

Electric cupcakes

Several years ago, my then science department head and former 9th grade science teacher was retiring. Bob Webster brought me many useful and entertaining ideas. He had our whole department making wikis to share information in the early 00’s. Through him, I learned more about computer repair, web design, programming and electricity. He helped me to cultivate a positive environment encouraging kids to work with and understand concepts that many find intimidating. So what to bring to his party? Electric Cupcakes, of course!

Continue Reading Chris Connors
Double-whammy lighting/heating energy saving tank hack

Double-whammy lighting/heating energy saving tank hack

Flickr user fotogra4er replaced the fluorescent tubes lighting his aquarium with LEDs. Which, of course, make way more light and way less heat for the same amount of energy. Then he upped the ante by cooling the LED lighting bank by circulating tank-water through it, which exploits what waste heat the LEDs do generate to warm the tank-water, and in turn saves power that would otherwise go to the tank heater.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan14