The Makeys

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 14, Tamiya, Documentation

Founded in Shikuoza, Japan in 1946, Kabushiki gaisha Tamiya was originally a sawmill and architectural lumber company that made wooden ship models as a sideline. Their first plastic model, released in 1960, was a 1/800 scale battleship Yamato. Today, Tamiya manufactures R/C sea, air, and land vehicles, robots, educational materials, and a line of modeling tools, paints, and accessories in addition to their traditional scale model line.

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Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 12, Atmel, Most Hackable Gadget

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 12, Atmel, Most Hackable Gadget

Last year, when Phil wrote his widely-read Why Arduino Won column, searching “arduino” on the Atmel website didn’t return even a single hit. Since that time, Atmel has started taking notice, linking out to Arduino resources from their “Education” pages, issuing their own press releases to support important Arduino-related events, sponsoring Arduino-themed contests, and more. They joined us at BAMF 2012 and we are looking forward to seeing them, again, at World Maker Faire NY at the end of this month.

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Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 11, Intel, Education/Outreach

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 11, Intel, Education/Outreach

Intel has many charitable giving programs, but their “Intel Involved” Matching Grant Program (which awards employees’ volunteer hours at eligible organizations with matching funds) has had a special impact in the hackerspace community.

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Instructions for the Theo Jansen Strandbeest

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 10, Gakken, Documentation

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 […]

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Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 09, NASA, Education

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 09, NASA, Education

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.

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