Black Makers Month: Amon Millner
Amon Millner is a member of the Modkit team. I also first met him at Maker Faire in Austin, Texas. He does a lot of cool stuff and his students do really cool stuff, too.
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.
Amon Millner is a member of the Modkit team. I also first met him at Maker Faire in Austin, Texas. He does a lot of cool stuff and his students do really cool stuff, too.
Thirteen-year-old Lauren Rojas’ science fair project has taken off in ways she never imagined. The seventh grader at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, Calif. saw a Visa commercial that featured three guys sending a balloon into the upper atmosphere. She wanted to do something simliar to test a hypothesis about the effects of altitude on air pressure and air temperature.
“I learned a lot more about space than I ever knew,” she said.
She also got an unexpected lesson in internet fame.
Call for Makers are open and active for over 20 Maker Faires around the globe. A good number are being organized by science and children’s museums, often in collaboration with local makers or makerspaces. Jerusalem Mini Maker Faire (March 18/19) and Tyler Mini Maker Faire (March 23) are two examples.
It’s my pleasure to tell you about two fantastic Young Makers / Open Make events happening in the San Francisco Bay Area this Saturday, Feb. 16. But be ready for a twinge of disappointment: You’ll have to pick just one of these two wonderful ways to spend a Saturday, because they are happening at the same time! Each site is an action-packed flurry of activity that starts at 10am and ends with an inspiring “meet-the-makers” panel discussio
Most people take for granted so much of the technology around us. One man who doesn’t is my neighbor and fellow Brown University faculty member Don Stanford. He is the genius that helped transform a small lottery machine builder into the world’s leading lottery machine manufacturer. No small task, considering how much money is transacted through these devices and considering how totally critical it is that they work all the time and maintain very secure transactions. What happens when a machine goes down? Well, GTECH would pay the owner of the machine for all the lost revenue until the machine is fixed! Just think about this for a second. What if Microsoft or ATT paid you every time your computer crashed or a call was dropped. I bet that would cause a transformational reliability improvement in Microsoft or ATT’s products!!
MAKE Asks: is a weekly column where we ask you, our readers, for responses to maker-related questions. We hope the column sparks interesting conversation and is a way for us to get to know more about each other.
Paper engineer Helen Friel created this remarkable paper craft stop motion animation of a water cycle, which takes place in a pop-up book, with collaborators Chris Turner and Jess Deacon.