One way to help build that #MakerMindset is to give learners many options for being creative. A Lego wall is one way to do that. It could be in your room or in the hall. It could be “permanent” or portable. Dr. Jacie Maslyk, a Pittsburgh are educator, writes a nice post about how to… Read more »

The City of Bloomington has some events for Black History Month and we are working with them on some things. Thought we would fidget with the logo and hashtag to laser cut/3D print some items to see what works and might be useful. Reminder : not all fonts laser cut well.

Here is a great article about Maker Centered Learning (aka #MakerEd) and the need for #MakerSpaces and #MakerMindset https://www.nsba.org/ASBJ/2023/february/maker-space

We have 2 Brother GX37 sewing machines on the van, so I wanted to do a beginner project for using them. I decided to make a couple of throw pillows , around 20″x20″. I went to JoAnn Fabrics to get some clearance material ($3 per yard – 42″ wide) (got the end of a bolt… Read more »

How do you promote making a variety of items on your tools so students can learn the various nuances of the tool? GlowForge recently tweeted a “Bingo” board which really could be used for more than just laser projects (with a few tweaks): Not that it is a difficult thing to create, but I found… Read more »

  Alasdair Massie Gears – such an important part of everyday life…involved in many machines. At their simplest, they increase/decrease torque or speed or change direction of motion. I think every school building should have a gear wall so students can experiment and get their hands on gears. If you have a laser cutter or… Read more »

Students need to sketch ideas on paper, some rough draft of a drawing. It doesnt need to be pretty, but they need to visualize ideas, even add some notes or locations of specific features. Pencil and paper.Some are good with golf pencils , some need full size.  Okay, some kids like pen. Often I use… Read more »

As in Cricut Joy. We recently purchased 2 of these for about $130 each (obviously you should shop for bundles on sale). They are small format (4.5″x6.5″ media) printer-cutters that work via Bluetooth and the Cricut Design Space App. I used the Mac in the MILL to cut something on one and my iPad with… Read more »

so, if the score lines don’t show really well, you can “double them up” or create an offset duplicate text… Some softwares have “offset” cuttle.xyz has “Linear repeat” under “Modify” I repeated the text, then displaced it by 0.01. I think it shows up a little better. The top is with Linear Repeat (bottom is… Read more »

I was getting the other Prusa i3 MK3S+ going, and the build plate didn’t want anything to stick to it. I had cleaned it off with hot water then isopropyl. It sure is tough to “level  the bed” if filament won’t stick. so I had to use hair spray. Now I needed something small to… Read more »