Jeri Ellsworth Talks Solenoids
Jeri shows the basic construction of solenoid actuators and demonstrates the relationship between strenght and hold power relative to current flow in the coil. [Via Adafruit]
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.
Fire Without Matches: Twenty-Three Spontaneously-Igniting Reactions
Really wonderful community video collaboration from the chem-hackers of sciencemadness.org, including MAKE pal and guest blogger Hayden Parker. Over about fourteen minutes, we are treated to a bench-side view of two dozen energetic reactions that share an interesting property: reagents that, on mixing, spontaneously burst into flame.
Zero to Maker: Adventures in Plastic
In honor of Plastics month here on MAKE, I’m excited to chime in with some of my recent Zero to Maker exploits into the world of silicone. For the non-maker (or “pre-maker,” as I like to say), working with plastic can be revelatory. It opens your eyes to the wonders and possibilities of easily creating everyday objects and provides a new perspective on the way so much of our world is manufactured.
Skraptacular! at World Maker Faire New York
SKRAPTACULAR! is a grassroots recycling organization which works with New York City schoolchildren to creatively reduce and reuse waste materials, has a larger-than-life presence at the second annual World Maker Faire at the N.Y. Hall of Science in Flushing Meadow Queens.
Zero to Maker: Is Making Nature or Nurture?
I wonder: what do you think the differences are between the “buy a grill” and “weld a grill” people, in general? I guess more broadly I mean the difference between people who “get” making and those who don’t, regardless of their actual ability to make things.
Zero to Maker: Crafting 101
So far on my Zero to Maker journey, I’ve spent a lot of time with the technical aspects of making, with a heavy emphasis on learning the necessary skills to help boost my robotics knowledge. However, this has caused me to overlook one of the most important groups of makers: crafters.
Reusing Leftover Plastic Model Sprue, or, The Art of Sprue-Stretching
Admittedly, “art” may be, ah, stretching it a bit, but hot-pulling scrap styrene model sprue over an open flame to make plastic rods of various thicknesses is a classic technique in plastic model-building. The resulting material can be as thin as a human hair, and commonly finds use in scale modelling as antenna aerials, wire, bolt heads, etc.