Students from the Math and Engineering Club worked in the Innovation Center this morning to prepare for a “Soak a Professor” event.
Preparing the target:
The siege engines, ready to siege:
I didn’t get any shots from the actual event, but suffice it to say that the professors involved were indeed soaked.
Students in Jennifer Kraemer’s ECE 312 – Child Development class had the opportunity to explore interoperability of proprietary building systems, with a little help from 3D printed interface pieces.
LEGO + K’NEX + Tinker Toys + Lincoln Logs… why not?
Making doesn’t (and shouldn’t) end in High School.
Photos by @jenniferkraemer
We’ve added a new machine to the lab: an Inventables X-Carve. I scheduled a build day this coming Friday. We’ll see how far we can get in 2 hours!
Update:
Build Day, Part 1
Build Day 2, Part 2
Build Day, Part 3
Jennifer Kraemer (Early Childhood Education) and I are collaborating on a “Making in ECE” class, which will be one of the capstone/MAtC classes in our maker certificates. As part of that Jennifer has been working with a LEGO MINDSTORMS set, and recently built a little robot.
We sat down the other day to work with the EV3 Programmer app. It reminds me some of Scratch, with a drag-and-drop interface and functional blocks, and we set out to address a classic Logo sort of challenge: have the robot draw/drive a square.
Having never before used the app, and having no prior programming experience, Jennifer was able to program the sequence, complete with looping logic, and topped off by a few embellishments!
Helping students rig the balloon, with the 3D printed picavet in the foreground:
Lowering the rig to clear the canopy:
Nothing better than doing real science in the field with students (plus wearing a sweet safety vest):
Additional photos and datasets at the project blog dolookdown.org
Max Mahoney (Chemistry) and I have been collaborating on a volumetric display for the 3D visualization of molecular models. We developed a pretty sweet prototype, and then Max had the idea that instead of one big monitor, wouldn’t it be easier to just have 4 identical small monitors?
Indeed I think it would be.
The video can be sent from the computer to a 4 way HDMI splitter, then sent to 4 identical monitors – maybe 7″? – each rotated 90 degrees. No special software to deal with, no creation of a special 4plexed version of the video. An elegant volumetric appliance, at least on paper…
Jennifer Kraemer (Early Childhood Education) was in the lab today, printing up some new connector pieces from the Free Universal Construction Kit. I used the K’NEX-to-Lego connectors in a workshop over the summer, and Jennifer is planning on printing many more pieces for use next week for activities with her ECE students.
Side note – I’ve been really impressed with the performance of the Printrbot Simple Metal. It’s been getting a fair amount of use lately, with the aquaponics nozzles and Max’s molecules and molecular visualizer and the picavet parts, and it just seems to go and go without being fussy. That said, I have my eye on a Formlabs Form 2. I’m especially interested in the castable resin. It would be great to get a metal pour going in the fall!
Details over at http://www.dolookdown.org/2016/04/18/3d-printed-picavet/
Working with Max Mahoney (Chemistry) on a molecule visualizer, and we had the opportunity to throw the prototype on a 30″ monitor. The results are encouraging!
Next up: Max is going to render a custom molecule video. We’ll format that for the system, and assuming all goes as planned, work out the enclosure issues, which will likely involve some CNC work.
After addressing the venturi challenge, I was able to get the second chain of recycled bottles for the drip aquaponics system set up:
It ran all weekend without a hitch, and the science fish seem pleased. I’ve planted the bottles with cuttings of mint, oregano, yerba buena, and lemon balm, and hopefully they’ll all root.
