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.
In engineering, fabricating, and all-around making, it is very useful to know basic drawing styles. This will help you get your ideas out of your head and onto that napkin, or into your notebook so that you can bring them into the world. Architects, planners, designers, engineers, and others use drawing to help communicate their […]
Back in 2007, Mark hit on Don Wilkes’ 1960s invention (U.S. patent #3,452,175) of the so-called “rolamite”over at boing-boing, quoting a description of it as “the only ‘basic mechanism’ invented in the 20th century.” Basically, a rolamite is a very-low-friction bearing. Rex Research has posted the entirety of a 1966 Popular Science article covering their […]
The other night I checked out the volunteer night at Bikes Not Bombs in Jamaica Plain Boston. At the end of the night, there were about a dozen volunteers working together to “flatten bikes” so they could be efficiently shipped to Ghana in West Africa. The crowd was mostly young adults with a balance of […]
My colleague Julie Steele, editor of The Geek Atlas, suggested I check out the Musée des arts et métiers on my recent trip to Paris. It’s a true Maker’s museum; I really don’t know where to begin. It’s got so much stuff a maker could love: A remake of Lavoisier’s laboratory Léon Foucault’s apparatus for […]
Vincent Mariano, of the SPHS Solar Knights solar race car team out of South Plantation High School in Plantation, Florida, wrote in to ask us why we haven’t written anything about the Dell-Winston solar car challenge currently underway at the Texas Motor Speedway. Because we hadn’t heard from you yet, Vincent! Thanks, and good luck […]
Here’s a nice demonstration of an aluminum-air battery which produces 1.0 V and 100 mA from the oxidation of aluminum foil. Metal-air cells such as this find common application in hearing aid batteries, for instance, which are driven by the oxidation of zinc. More: How-To: Backyard battery The Supercap battery
Limor has posted another installment of her exceedingly excellent sensor tutorials, this one on that most marvelous of switches, the tilt sensor. When you just have to know which end is up, you need to strap on one of these puppies. Here’s how. Sensor tutorials – Tilt sensors! More: Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) tutorial Ladyada’s […]
