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.

Chemistry Set Boasts “No Chemicals”

Chemistry Set Boasts “No Chemicals”

In point of fact, I have some empathy for the makers of this Chemistry 60 educational laboratory kit. They are, after all, just responding to the demands of the market, and we at MAKE actually have some first-hand experience of how hard it is, these days, to manufacture, market, and/or distribute chemistry sets that don’t, for lack of a better word, suck. So I post this not so much in the spirit of “shame on such-and-so” for creating this astounding oxymoron of a product, but rather to lament the general state of affairs we have come to thanks to litigiousness, chemophobia, and flagging scientific literacy. There has got to be a way back. [via C&E News]

Purdue Claims World Record Goldberg Machine

Purdue Claims World Record Goldberg Machine

It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, “The Time Machine,” a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower.

Data Sorting Dances

Created at Romania’s Sapientia University. The YouTube channel is AlgoRythmics. Although some naysayers have expressed doubt about the choreographic expression of a quicksort, per the AlgoRythmics Facebook page, videos of both quick- and merge-sort dances will be uploaded in a few days. Stay tuned! [Thanks, Stefan!]