Maker Spotlight: Blue Martin

Name: Blue Martin
Home: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Makerspace: Her pig pen
Day Job: Artificial Heart Engineer

Tiny Electric Racecars: Biomedical Engineering : Roller Derby

Blue Martin is the constructor of the Waffle Kart in the Power Racing Series, and is also a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at CMU. She’s most comfortable in a machine shop, a pig pen, or as a referee on the roller derby track. While pursuing her passion in artificial heart research, she stumbled upon a project to develop a device that could treat malaria through magnetic aphaeresis. Her continual hardware development through her doctoral thesis is part of the reason she uses the Power Racing Series as a relaxing engineering challenge, as well as an outreach to a much wider maker community who share her interests in STEM-related education.

“It doesn’t take a genius to make something really cool and effective, just a good team of friends. Or not. Whatever”

For some people, participating in the under-$500 electric kart series that features vehicles from Mario Kart, Jurassic Park, and Back to The Future means serious business. After meeting team captain Thorin Tobiassen through a few machining classes, Blue is now part of the three-car team The Arustocrats. Blue didn’t wait around for the perfect ride — she built it with scraps, dumpster diving, and random Craigslist searching:

“Having fun and keeping in touch with your inner child is sometimes the only way to stay sane. I thrive from all my hobbies and often learn far more than expected from them than many academic classes I have taken.”

Blue’s whip with appropriate syrup vinyl

Blue battling a shark on a Roomba in this year’s Maker Faire Detroit competition

Blue’s teammates, Zach and Thorin, putting laps down at Maker Faire New York

Zach and Thorin pacing at New York under the Arustocrats banner.

Blue helped Zach build this “quick change” battery blade, meant to improve pit stop times for the large Randy Savage themed Power Racer

You can find Blue online at:
Facebook | Website

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