The annual “Children’s Farm Festival at Peden Farms” was September 28 & 29. Over 1200 k,1,2 kids plus adult chaperones (and some younger siblings) each day roam the area, checking out animals , games, demonstrations and activities of all kinds, or a hayride. We had a 3D printer going, printing some pumpkin charms. Many people… Read more »

I just thought I would laser a ruler onto a 6″/15 cm craft stick… I used https://cuttle.xyz/dashboard to do the design. I made a box the size of the stick (1.8 cm x 15 cm) I positioned it so the left corner is at the origin I put a line/tick mark at 0.5 cm (&… Read more »

The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites in Indianapolis held a Tinkerfest o n September 16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. https://www.indianamuseum.org/programs/tinkerfest/  A day when visitors could fiddle with various technologies, materials, maker stuff from the 25 exhibitors.. There were about 500 attendees, mostly young kids.           For our booth… Read more »

Get yourself some 6″ craft sticks (you could use 4″ popsicle sticks, but the short length changes things..like how easy to assemble and flexibility) and some rubber bands (not long ones, but sturdy ones – 2.25″-3″). You also need a plastic bottle top or small paper/plastic cup. And of course some projectiles.   Catapult 1… Read more »

We are looking at an Energy Education grant and part of an idea might be those hand crank generators. We have some DC motors lying around doing nothing, so I wanted to turn one into this. So I used tinkercad to design a wheel that could connect to the motor spindle. The spindle is 2… Read more »

punkin chunkin time will soon be upon us, so we thought about building a catapult. Then we thought about building a table top version for STEM for Elementary Teachers and to take to schools/events. I am working with 1/2″ PVC, and made one from scraps. We are thinking to NOT glue it so some things… Read more »

A colleague was creating some 3D printed balloon cars to show his students an example of something you could use a 3D printer for in STEM/Physics classes. The car is a demonstration of Newtons 3rd Law of Motion. I had the thought that those would be good for me to have in the maker van… Read more »

Makevention ( http://makevention.org/ ) is a family event that happened on August 27 at Switchyard Park. It is a gathering/exhibit of many of the makers around Bloomington to showcase what they do. It is put on by Bloominglabs , a public makerspace in Bloomington. There were about two dozen exhibitors of all variety (circuits, sewing,… Read more »

I want to make some conductivity testers and I don’t want to buy battery holders… So I designed a box in tinkercad, 1 mm larger than 2 AAA batteries (44.3 mm x 20.4 mm x 10 mm) and only 1 mm thick for the floor & walls. I also made it 5 mm taller than… Read more »

There are some STEM/Maker events coming soon to get students involved, some locally and some nationally… IC3D Toys for Tots #3Dprinting (Christmas Drive) Have some 3D printers with some idle time. Print some Toys for Tots They share certain files to print Last year the community donated 69,000 toys https://www.ic3dprinters.com/2023-toys/ September 22 & 23 –… Read more »