Imagine being invited to share your school project with the President.
Today that fantasy was a reality for two Berkeley, California seventh-graders. Jane Yarnell and Sam Schickler, along with their science teacher Christine Mytko, were at the White House Maker Faire today, showing off 3D printed scans of microscopic surfaces created as part of their school’s Maker Club.
“I’ve never liked to just buy a new thing,” 13-year-old Yarnell told Berkeleyside. “It’s way more fun to work on it.”
It started in the Black Pine Circle School’s Maker Club when Yarnell, Schickler, and other students wrote proposals to use Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source, which can be used to create highly detailed digital reconstructions of small objects.
“You take over a thousand photos from many different angles, of the sample, which is generally about a millimeter in size,” Mytko told Berkeleyside. “So using software what you can do is reconstruct that like a 3D X-ray.”
The students scanned objects like Mentos candy, snake skin, duct tape, and eggshells, then expanded the scans using Fiji imaging software and used the school’s 3D printer to print the results. The club debuted the finished products at Maker Faire Bay Area in May and won “Editor’s Choice” and “Best in Class” ribbons.
Via Berkeleyside.
President Obama is hosting the first-ever White House Maker Faire to recognize the contributions of makers who bring creativity and technical ability to a broad range of projects. If you are a maker or a friend of makers, please become an advocate for expanding opportunities for making and makers in your community.
To show your support for growing the maker community, we encourage you to sign the “Building Maker Communities” pledge and put yourself on the map!
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