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.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 About Andrew Dawes

Andrew Dawes is teaching our new Training Camp: Introduction to Arduino. By day, Andy is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Pacific University, where he leads a group of undergraduate research students in several fields of physics: atom cooling and trapping, pattern-forming nonlinear optics, slow- and fast-light, and the application of optical systems to quantum information science (I’m sure he will translate that in the Camp). By night, he builds robots, teaches himself 3-D printing and is a proud father of three.

Continue Reading Parker Thomas
Aaron Vanderwerff Named “Inspirational Teacher of the Year”

Aaron Vanderwerff Named “Inspirational Teacher of the Year”

Oakland’s Lighthouse Community Charter School is turning out some great young makers. If you attended Maker Faire this past week you might have run into Lighthouse students displaying a solar-powered scooter. (It started out as a go kart, but someone stole the chassis) and an EV truck project. The school’s teachers are no slouches either. This week one of the students’ instructors, Aaron Vanderwerff, was named “inspirational teacher of the year”

Continue Reading Stett Holbrook
Sign Up Now for Maker Training Camps

Sign Up Now for Maker Training Camps

Today, we offer you a new way of learning: Maker Training Camps. Training Camps are collaborative online courses specifically designed to make it easier to learn a new skill or build a specific project. Camps use Google hangouts and communities to make it easy to work with other students and teachers. Camps are generally between one and five weeks in length with a lecture, a project and optional office hours each week.

Continue Reading Parker Thomas
Making Makerspaces: Acquiring Insurance

Making Makerspaces: Acquiring Insurance

This is the first in a series of posts documenting how to start a makerspace of your own in your local community. This post is focused on the one question almost everyone asks when starting a space – how do you get insurance for your makerspace? We’ll start with a quick introduction to the series, and then jump into the meat of the question.

Continue Reading Gui Cavalcanti15
Red Bull Creation 2013 Lineup

Red Bull Creation 2013 Lineup

Red Bull Creation, a cool DIY competition sponsored by Red Bull, is back with a new challenge for 2013: It’s been three years with three variations of the nation’s favorite 72-hour themed innovation competition and it keeps getting better. Red Bull Creation returns in 2013 with a new challenge, inspiring technology and a national stage […]

Continue Reading John Baichtal2
Is it a Hackerspace, Makerspace, TechShop, or FabLab?

Is it a Hackerspace, Makerspace, TechShop, or FabLab?

The past decade has seen the sudden, dramatic appearance of community spaces offering public, shared access to high-end manufacturing equipment. These spaces are interchangeably referred to as hackerspaces, makerspaces, TechShops, and FabLabs. This can lead the intended audience to become incredibly confused as to why there might be so many names for a single concept. I’d like to take some time to untangle the mess, explain the concepts behind each title, and talk about why I now make significant distinctions between all of these types of spaces.

Continue Reading Gui Cavalcanti47
Synthetic Biology for Makers

Synthetic Biology for Makers

John Cumbers and a team of synthetic biologists are offering a one-day course on the subject in San Francisco. The course is aimed at makers and programmers, and designed to give a comprehensive introduction into synthetic biology. Last week, I learned that we’re much closer to DIY synthetic biology than many of us realize. This course should be a good primer.

Continue Reading David Lang