By Jack Chen, October 4th, 2014
Hey there! It’s been too long since I last posted but I wanted to update you on some exciting news going on at my school. My Art Teacher friend (Louie Aragon) and I have finally gotten around to cleaning out a space for a new 3D Design and Fabrication Club. We have been working with …
Continue reading >>> (STEM to STEAM) 3D Design and Fabrication Club!
By Jack Chen, November 9th, 2013
We finally had a chance to play around with Autodesk 123D Make after first learning about it a year ago. For our first project , I had a student download a rocket model from the Autodesk 3D Model Gallery and then had him load it into 123D Make.
123D Make is an intuitive piece …
Continue reading >>> 123D Make…Makes me a Rocket!
By Jack Chen, October 6th, 2013
I went to the The New England School of Architectural Woodworking (NESAW) to attend ShopBot Camp this Saturday and it was awesome! The school is located on the first floor of a converted warehouse/factory building that also houses several artists’ studios. NESAW began as a collaboration between the Division of Continuing Education at the University …
Continue reading >>> ShopBot Camp! (Easthampton, MA)
By Jack Chen, September 22nd, 2013
I went to the 2013 NYC Maker Faire today and…to quote one of my students who also attended…it was “very intense.” There was definitely a lot to see but the highlight of the day was that I had a chance to meet some of the great people from ShopBot!
I finally had a chance …
Continue reading >>> ShopBot at the 2013 NYC Maker Faire!
By Jack Chen, September 18th, 2013
Sometimes things just don’t go like you planned in the shop. As I was working with a student on our latest project…which I hope to blog about soon…I ran our Ø 1/8″ carbide end mill into a hold-down screw, shattered the tool and ruined the work piece. This is why it’s important to …
Continue reading >>> Crash!…Shop Safety Reminder
By Jack Chen, September 3rd, 2013
It’s back-to-school time and the clock in my apartment hallway just decided to disintegrate! How am I going to know when to leave for school in the mornings now?
Fortunately, I have a ShopBot Desktop and some ideas about what I would like to have for a replacement… I’ve been …
Continue reading >>> Tick Tock…It’s Back-to-School Time!
By Jack Chen, August 19th, 2013
With all of the use that my students and I have been getting out of our ShopBot Desktop, I’ve begun to notice that our spindle flats are really starting to get mangled by the combination of the “loose fit” of the Park Tool 20mm bicycle cone wrench that was supplied in the toolkit and by …
Continue reading >>> Upgrading tools…
By Jack Chen, August 9th, 2013
I’ve noticed that a lot of hobbyists have been making really cool-looking finger jointed boxes with laser cutters and I decided that I just had to give it a try using my ShopBot Desktop CNC machine.
I found several blog postings that discuss how to build these types of boxes and I found a few …
Continue reading >>> Making boxes…
By Jack Chen, July 23rd, 2013
Sometimes students will stay in my classroom after school to play chess. Our paper chess board was warped and didn’t lay very flat which was a problem…
I found an old piece of hardboard paneling in the back of my classroom that was about the right size and …
Continue reading >>> A New Chessboard for the Classroom…
By Jack Chen, July 22nd, 2013
The Problem:
My kids like to hack electronics and it is sometimes difficult to find the perfect enclosure for a circuit. “O” was building a 3-zone LED lighting system for his mother’s sewing machine and he needed to make a special cover to hold his switches. He had already tried to make one in acrylic …
Continue reading >>> A Switchplate for an LED Lighting System…
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