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.
In April, I visited the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and met with Executive Director Jane Werner and her staff. They were excited to show me their MakeShop, a place inside the museum where anyone can make something. Jane told me that the museum serves families and we talked about how it was important to connect not just with kids but also their parents and grandparents. This is how we get making re-introduced into the home.
The Lemelson-MIT Program’s fifth annual EurekaFest is taking place Thursday, June 16 through Saturday, June 18 in Boston, MA. This three day event will bring together innovators of all ages, including 14 teams of high school-age inventors. The aim is to inspire the next generation of leaders in sustainable technology.
If I understand the annotations on this, YouTuber ironnica’s only posted video, correctly, the footage was produced by a New Jersey educational media company in 1991, and the delightfully British narration more recently by somebody associated with the UK’s Open University. In any case, it is a perfectly concise, interesting, and entertaining demonstration of the increasing reactivities of the group I metals lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium.
Bill’s back! And his subject this week may be the ultimate example of a truly astounding piece of engineering that we all tend to take for granted: The computer hard drive. A favorite college physics professor once admitted to me that the hard disk drive impressed him more than almost any other single piece of modern technology, and I have since found that, the more I think about it, the more I agree with him. As always, Bill Hammack does a great job of explaining things in a way that will appeal to both experts and amateurs.
Very interesting vid from 16-year-old Hayden Parker, who impressed me greatly with his animated chemistry demonstrations at Maker Faire. Metallic aluminum can be dissolved in liquid gallium to create an aluminum-bearing alloy that is liquid at ambient conditions. Because it can flow in the alloy, the aluminum cannot form a stable passive oxide layer and will react violently with water, which nicely demonstrates the normally-hidden high natural reactivity of metallic aluminum.
A few months ago on vacation on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, I went into a used bookstore which the proprietor proudly told me was “the westernmost bookstore in the United States.” Searching the shelves, I came upon a delightful four-volume series, “A History of Everyday Things in England“, written by Marjorie and C. H. B. Quennell, and first published in 1918. “Everyday Things” was written for boys and girls who “should be trained to do useful work and learn to use their hands.”
Inspired by Maker Faire this past weekend? Workshop Weekend, happening in locations around the Bay Area this coming Saturday and Sunday, will turn that enthusiasm into hands-on education and real-life making. An amazing range of short (2-4 hour) introductory workshops will take you from knowing nothing to welding, making pens, casting glass or metal, building […]
