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I met with a local homeschool group to do some coding (“turtle art”). There were 13 students (mixed ages) and I have 6 laptops, so they partnered an older with a younger and had 1 triple. We utilized MIT’s block coding site . I have a handout with simple steps to get going. The coding… Read more »

I headed to Crawford County Community Schools to work with 6 elementary teachers (2 from each school) and 1 administrator. They just got some Bambu A1’s and wanted to learn about using them. When I got there, they were already assembling their printers (1st snow made travel slooooww) After getting the printers to do their… Read more »

IU & The Dimension Mill (&others) held a Friday night block party to celebrate innovation, entrepreneurship, art, and community in the heart of Bloomington’s Trades District. There were a bunch of food trucks, crafters/entrepreneurs selling their wares, a robotics team (or two), Parks & Rec with their yard games trailer that you can rent, MCCSC… Read more »

I went to Van Buren Elementary School to work with some educators after school on using their 3D printer. I walked them through getting a image from the noun project and importing it into Tinkercad. Then we talked about some of the tools in Tinkercad. A couple of them were able to download and install… Read more »

We had another batch of 8th graders from Avondale Meadows come to IU for a campus tour. We had them build the “mini wind turbine“ kit from teachergeek. Before we got into the kits, we did a “battery & bulb” lesson. Each student got a CR2032 battery and an LED. Their mission was to light… Read more »

Bloomington Parks & Recreation held their annual Pumpkin Launch at the Monroe County Fairgrounds. They had 6 launchers this year in 2 categories (small & large). A little over 200 people attended, with a mix of families and college students. I gave out stickers to almost everyone. It rained lightly a little bit off and… Read more »

Orange County has all (175) the 8th graders from the various schools participate in a manufacturing day. They get tours of several businesses, and they come to the Community Center for some hands on activities and lunch. Cook Medical had a couple of stations, there was a robotic arm from DeVry, and another company had… Read more »

I went to the Blue Academy Elementary School in Decatur Township to work with the 4, third grade classes. They were doing a STEM rotation day before Fall Break. I brought paper circuits with a Halloween theme. They all worked diligently, though some did not get the circuit completed in our time allotted. Hopefully they… Read more »

I headed to Batchelor MS Makerspace, because all 4 – 3D printers were acting up. I super heated the nozzle (260 as opposed to PLA 215-225) and let that “stew” for a couple of minutes. Then I unloaded and loaded the filament a couple of times. 3 of them responded to that. The extruder gears… Read more »

MCCSC held a STEAM Night at the Academy of Science & Entrepreneurship. They counted 275 attendees, which was a mix of kids and parents (families). There were 14 exhibitors, lots of robots, some robot art (sphero painting), some bugs, some engineering…a nice mix. I had paper circuits with Halloween templates and rubberband cars. Luckily there… Read more »