"Tinkering is a fun way to learn about the world around you," says Ryan in his new book, 'The Tinkering Workshop,' which promotes creativity and playful experimentation with everyday materials for families, children, and educators. I've known Ryan for many years from when he worked at The Exploratorium's Tinkering Studio. Ryan will be at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend where he will organize hands-on workshops and talk about his book. https://make.co/make-cast/

Dale Dougherty interviews Camila and Diego Luna of Moonmakers at the Fab 24 conference in Puebla, Mexico. Moonmakers is an educational non-profit focused on promoting science, technology, STEAM education, and the maker movement. They share their journey from starting with robotics and participating in international competitions, to creating content and resources for teachers and students. They highlight the importance of peer-to-peer learning and the challenges faced by the maker community in...

Chad Orcutt created Community Shop Class in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento, California. What started out as the ADHD Inventor's Club in his garage grew into a new space, unlike any makerspace you've seen. He saw it as way to help people, particularly neurodivergent people like himself, learn to use tools safely. He's built a shop class for people who never had shop class.Link to companion article on Makezine.com.Link to video on YouTube.http://makezine.com

My guest is Cy Tymony, author of "Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things" and "Sneaky Math." Cy has a wonderful DIY worldview that he shares through his many books. He reveals a secret world to you if you're willing to be a little sneaky. To Cy, sneaky means you learn about something that not everybody knows, the way a magician has learned to do a trick and then can amaze their friends. Cy says his point is to encourage everyone to "discover the power and resources that you have," which ...

Jenny Young is a mechanical engineer who founded Brooklyn Robot Factory thirteen years ago and introduced it at World Maker Faire in NYC to bring hands-on learning experiences to kids in schools and afterschool programs. Her company has evolved into a franchise business where they train and equip others to provide hands-on classes. Jenny says: "I'm not selling kits; I'm selling a service."http://makezine.com

Matt Zigler is the author of a new book for educators titled "3 Modes of Making." He talks about imitation, modification and innovation as three different modes of student projects,  which can develop different maker skills.  Matt is an artist and educator who has been running the makerspace at Bullis, an independent school in the DC area.  He brings a background in art and creative practice to the makerspace and his school.  it's not that every student  is going to be an artist but every...

Trying to repair almost anything can be a frustrating exercise.  Repair is made more difficult by the way devices are designed and the ability to repair a device could be improved greatly if different design decisions were made.  This moment in time demands a new generation of designers, engineers and makers to consider how to make products that can be more easily and safely repaired by more people.   My guest on this episode is Jude Pullen, a creative technologist from the UK. "What's...

This episode features an interview with the authors of a new book titled "AI Robots." which includes Reade Richard, Andy Forest, Brenda Shivanandan and Denzel Edwards. The book is designed to teach kids how to build AI-powered projects using hands-on activities and coding. The authors discuss the different sections of the book, which include physical build, electronics, coding with Micro:bit, and adding AI capabilities. They emphasize the importance of integrating different subjects, such as...

My guest on this episode of Make:cast is Jim Sweeney, the treasurer of NoVA Labs, a community makerspace in northern Virginia. Jim talks honestly about the challenges of growing a makerspace. With 700 members and many programs for young makers in the community, NoVA Labs has a bold vision of what a makerspace can be and Jim is determined to realize that vision in his community. NoVA Labs is thriving with plans to host a Maker Faire against next spring.  http://makezine.com

A conversation between Dale Dougherty, the founder of Make Magazine and Maker Faire, and Brian Wagner, an educator, coder, and maker.  Brian Wagner talks about his life as a maker from his first encounter with computers to his current career in teaching and creating a how-to-code video course. They discuss his early fascination with computers, transitioning into engineering and teaching, his experiences in founding a hackerspace, and his efforts in introducing youngsters to coding. Brian...

Chris Walker dropped out of Dartmouth and became a Thiel Fellow in 2013.  He had an idea for a math video game that was inspired by the TI 84 graphing calculator.  He tried creating an educational video game studio but it didn't work out.  He joined Hack Club, a student-led educational intiative that started teaching coding but has branched out.  Hack Club's founder, Zach Latta, was also a Thiel Fellow.   Chris started Castle Bravo as a personal project -- with the idea of turning a bouncy...

Donnell Layne and Jason Kennedy developed the iMAKE Innovation Center  Makerspace at Moreno Valley College in Southern California, an Hispanic-serving community college. They talk about developing the space to meet the needs of students and faculty as well as the broader community. They also see it as a space that is growing into the future,  just like the students. iMAKE Innovation Center- https://mvc.edu/student-support/academic-support/innovation-center.php Moreno Valley College -...

My guests on this episode are the authors of Make Trigonometry, Build Your Way from Triangles to Analytic Geometry, Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron.  Make Trigonometry is the third math book that Joan and Rich have written with us, the previous books being Make Geometry and Make Calculus. Joan calls herself a recovering rocket scientist. In that career, she worked on spacecraft headed to distant planents.  Her co-author, Rich, has a very different background as an open source developer who has...

Assemble is a leading example of a community-oriented creative space focused on the needs of youth, providing summer and afterschool programming that is fun, expressive and personal. Nina Barbuto is the founder and director of Assemble, which serves youth and adults in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Starting and growing a community makerspace is hard, but Nina has persisted in building out this creative space and its programs since 2011. Before starting Assemble, Nina graduated from Carnegie...

Daniel Brateris is Director of Experiential Learning at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. We talk about the practice of hands on learning and its value to students in engineering. Daniel was responsible for building out the manufacturing and makerspace facilities at NJIT. We talk about the social value of these spaces that bring students together to collaborate and also form friendships. Plus, he is seeing that the kinds of things you learn to do in a makerspace can...

Dale Dougherty talks to Michael Stone of the Public Education Foundation of Hamilton County in southeast Tennessee. Michael is responsible to developing a network of 34 Fab Labs in K-12 schools with more to come next year. In this conversation, Michael talks about making as authentic learning, involving real problems and solutions, and which leads to authentic assessment. 00:00 Authentic Learning and Making 02:09 Michael's Background 03:54 Stumbling into Fab Labs 05:46 From Master Teacher...

Rose Hedges of UnityPoint Health in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Anna Young of Maker Health join me to talk about how a makerspace on the first floor of a hospital has created opportunities for nurses and other medical staff to prototype solutions to problems they encounter in their jobs. Rose is a nurse and manages the makerspace called Generate Lab. She is also organizing a Maker Faire at the hospital makerspace on May 17th. Anna and Rose provide insights into a bottom-up innovation process that...

Galen Powers is a multi-faceted person: a maker and an inventor who has been successful in business. He credits his success to working with people who are passionate about their craft. In this conversation, Galen talks about growing up in rural California, learning about plastics and engineering graphics in high school and then figuring out how to get a job doing something useful. He talks about his many jobs, and how we came to get patents on the fabrication of eyeglasses. Joining the...

Organizer David Caulkins and Combat Robot Legend Ray Billings talk about the return of Robogames, which takes place at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton CA on April 6th through 9th, 2023. Robogames is the world's largest robot competition with over 54 different events -- everything from tiny little Rubik's cube-sized Sumo robots that act autonomously to humanoids that play soccer. The big thing is always the 250-pound robots in our 40 foot by 40 foot, 130,000 pound arena. When I...

Maks Zolin wanted to build a better, faster printer that was also quieter. He set out building the Voron printer in his garage but he ended up deciding that he didn't want to run a 3D printer company. So, he open sourced his work and invited others to collaborate with him. That's how Maks came to launch Voron Design, an innovation community pushing the limits of what 3D printers can do. In this episode, I asked Maks Zolin to tell the story behind Voron Design.

Maker and educator, Debra Ansell is my guest on this episode of Make:cast. She is obsessed with orbs -- colorful, LED orbs and she shows us how to build a brightly lit orb in the new issue of Make Magazine. Debra and I talk about the process of developing her orb project. She also talks about her LED pillows based on the Pixel Blaze controller, as well as an LED neck pendant, both of which have been featured in Make Magazine. She volunteers in schools, teaching kids to code using MicroBit....

A lot of makers struggle to learn CAD. Why is this keystone piece of software such a challenge to learn? This is what I talk about with Jake Sugden and Josh Manley, who are the teachers of CAD Class at cadclass.org. Jake and Josh met at Urban Workshop in Costa Mesa, California, a professional makerspace where they had a lot of opportunity to see people struggling to learn CAD. They have put together an online 12-week class for those who want to learn CAD along with others.

Microsoft's Bryce Johnson and John Helmes Join Make: Editor Caleb Kraft to talk about creating adaptive devices that can be customized, hacked and modded easily by makers using 3D printers as well as the people with disabilities who use them. Bryce Johnson works at the Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft who is one of the co-inventors of the Xbox Adaptive Controller and the Surface Adaptive Kit. John Helmes is an industrial designer at Microsoft who began creating and customizing devices for his...

The world needs more maker microfactories and I wonder if Santa might be interested in learning more about them from Tim Keller, the head of Inventopia in Davis CA, my guest on this episode. A maker microfactory is a kind of makerspace that focuses on the needs of startups and individual entrepreneurs who are creating prototypes for a business. Keller started Inventopia because he wanted such a space to work. Now, with his proximity to UC Davis, he offers space and equipment for all kinds of...