We’re very happy to nominate Gakken for this year’s Documentation Makey. Gakken is a huge publishing company that’s been around for over sixty years producing educational materials and kits like the Denshi blocks they brought to market in the 70s. We’ve been carrying their Otona no Kagaku (Adult Science) mook and kit combos in the […]
Among NASA’s nine legislative “prime directives” is “[t]he preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere.” This mandate has informed the agency’s fundamental role in public STEM education from the very beginning.
Founded in 1982 with the launch of their flagship AutoCAD software, San Rafael’s Autodesk, Inc. has historically lead the way in the development of digital design technology. Today, Autodesk products serve all sectors of the professional 3D design market, from engineering, to architecture, to entertainment, as well as an increasing number of consumer-level and mobile applications.
Makers, tinkerers, and hackers have latched onto the Raspberry Pi because of its price and capabilities. And with the enormous Linux community available for support, the pains of working with a new platform have been minimal. Since its release, we’ve seen a deluge of incredible projects that use the Raspberry Pi in creative and inventive ways and we’re only just getting started. It’s for this reason that we’ve nominated Raspberry Pi, the $35 Linux computer, for a Makey in the category Most Hackable Gadget.
Launched in 2009, element14 bills itself as “the first online community specifically for engineers.” e14, as it’s commonly known, is a subsidiary of British conglomerate Premier Farnell plc, which also owns Newark Electronics. Since launch, e14 has enjoyed widespread acclaim in the maker community, bolstered in no small part by their ongoing sponsorship of celebrity console modder Benjamin Heckendorn…
The Parrot.AR drone teardown on iFixIt saw one of the highest repairability scores that our pals over there have ever awarded. They cite the Parrot.AR’s repair-friendly design, the use of easily demountable fasteners, connectors, and subassemblies, and great repair support from Parrot itself, including readily available replacement parts and a series of how-to-fix it videos on the Parrot.AR site. And while a certain amount of repair-friendly design is just common sense in any R/C aircraft, common sense is not always so common, and even in the R/C market Parrot’s repairability still goes above and beyond the norm.
Lots of makers I know have a love/hate relationship with Harbor Freight. I was on the fence, myself, for a long time, but their deals keep luring me back, and by now I’ve probably spent a couple thousand dollars between their Austin retail locations and their website. And overall, I have to say, my experience of their products and their stores has been so much more good, than bad, that I’m a complete convert at this point. We at MAKE especially like the way Harbor Freight handles product documentation.
