ShopBot a key sponsor of CTE Makeover Challenge

The Handibot® Smart Power Tool, Adventure Edition. ShopBot is donating two of the tools to the CTE Makeover Challenge, as well as introductory training.

ShopBot Tools is proud and excited to be a leading sponsor of the CTE (Career & Technical Education) Makeover Challenge, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education.What’s the big …

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ShopBot helps Florida schools establish sorely needed STEM education

Middle schooler helps assemble a ShopBot

There has certainly been a lot of press ink, as well as talk coming from the business and political establishment, about the need for more STEM education in the U.S. to better educate our young people to compete for jobs. Nowhere is the talk turning into action more …

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3rd Annual Northern Florida Camp ShopBot 2016

For the 3rd year in a row, the School of Theatre’s Technical Production department at FSU in Tallahassee hosted a Camp ShopBot. Their building is located off campus in a converted middle school, which also houses the Art department and Interior Design department’s Digital Fabrication studio. Thea Eck, from ShopBot, spent a day visiting …

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Ohio Fab Lab provides 21st century skills and supports entrepreneurship

Lorain County Community College

 

It all started with a high school student raising his hand and asking a simple question: “Can we have a Fab Lab here?”

The year was 2005, and the questioner was a high-school aged student enrolled in the early college program offered by Lorain County Community College in Elyria, …

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ShopBot Helps UNC Students See the Stars

“Making” as distinct from “Building” is as much about knowing how each part is made as it is about arriving at a finished product. Through the exercise of planning and designing, we learn skills that apply to more than just the project at hand and we become more capable of creating new and better …

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A New Design Resource for ShopBotters Doing Collaborative Work: Fusion 360

I’m always on the lookout for resources for small shops doing digital fabrication – resources that will help these shops operate profitably by improving communications with customers and improving collaborations with partners working on the same project. For small shops doing CNC, 3d-printing, laser cutting, and applying other digital fab technologies, I think of …

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My Latest Adventures in the World of Education

In my role doing community outreach for ShopBot Tools, I have participated in the installation of several new digital Fab Labs/makerspaces in public and private schools around the US. While each of the installations has been different, there are lessons to be learned from each one. Here are a few recent case studies:

IU1, …

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ShopBot participates in conference on Cultivating an Entrepreneural Culture

What happens when the NACCE (National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship) has their annual conference? Inspired conversation.

Sallye Coyle, Educational Outreach Coordinator for ShopBot Tools, and I held a round table at the NACCE event. Attendees learned about the 100kGarages online network for bringing makers, designers, and fabbers together. …

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Costume designer creates textile print block with ShopBot

Design file used to recreate the design used on an antique wooden textile printing block.

 

Theatrical costume designer Katie Keener is a graduate student in technical theatre at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the theatre in residence is Playmakers Repertory Company. As part of her studies, Katie recently developed …

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FSU Theatre’s Jim Lile puts CNC into the spotlight

Jim Lile has quite an impressive background in professional theatre. He earned an MFA from the Yale School of Drama in Technical Design and Production in 1999. Over the years he has been the Technical Director, Stage Manager, Lighting Designer or staff member for a variety of theatrical and dance companies: Norwegian Cruise Lines, …

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