We had our first Camp in Illinois this past weekend, at the Cary-Grove High School. Mike Naughton was our host, and many of the attendees were also school teachers from nearby districts.
With such a large teacher presence we spent a bit of time going through the basics, as many of them were both new to Shopbot, and new to the idea of implementing it into a curriculum. We had Jay Wiese there who has written numerous teaching modules, and lesson plans for the Shopbot web page so he was also a resource for everyone.
Some of the “Show and Tell” items (which can be seen at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/campshopbot ) show the kinds of projects which are being done both by ‘Botters, and their students. We had everything from modular wine racks, to plywood Jeeps ! It looks as though there is a lot of styrofoam being cut up in the area both as mold masters, and finished products.
Mike’s school runs 9 day “technology modules”, and the students are able to take classes in everything from running the Shopbot, to building radio controlled vehicles ( he also had a Hovercraft parked outside his classroom which I suspect was a prior class project).
Jay showed off a piece of “Ren board”which is used to make masters for molds, and he had brought along a U.S. quarter which was laser scanned by Shopbotter Brady Watson to show how his class takes a master, and then casts it in aluminum.
Mayo Pardo brought in a piece of “Scooter board”which looks like it has real potential for making everything from signs, to vacuum masks.
And Mike’s worked out a very efficient way to get vaccum hold down working on his machine; he uses a Venturi jet on his shop compressor, which even though it is situated almost 50 feet from the machine is still able to generate 25″of vacuum holding power on the ‘Bot table !
As in prior Camps there was significant interest shown in some sort of “information exchange”for schools/teachers. With this in mind we plan to set up a new page on the Shopbot “Wiki”page which will be devoted to using the Shopbot in schools. That should be up and running within the week.
A good first Camp for the area, and we’ve already agreed to do it again next year, so if you are anywhere near the Chicago area, and you missed this one, plan to catch it next time around….
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