Make:cast

This is the keynote talk I gave at the Trenton Computer Festival 2025 at the end of March.  The theme of the festival was Fun with Technology and I talked about how Make and Maker Faire have been dedicated to people who have fun with technology.  I slightly edited this talk to remove references to the slides I used in the talk. https://make.co/make-cast/

In this episode of Make:cast, Dale Dougherty is joined by Ken Kahn, author of 'The Learner's Apprentice: AI and the Amplification of Human Creativity,' and Sylvia Martinez, co-author of 'Invent to Learn.' Ken discusses his experience in AI from his high school days to MIT's AI Lab and his journey into integrating AI into children's programming tools. Sylvia sheds light on the importance of empowering children with modern tools and technology. The discussion centers on creative uses of AI in education, including creating web apps and historical dialogues using chatbots, personalized learning, and the impact of AI in the classroom. This insightful conversation aims to inspire educators, parents, and students to adopt AI creatively and constructively.00:39 Ken Kahn's Journey into AI02:15 Sylvia Martinez's Background and Publishing Journey03:17 AI's Role in Education03:49 Ken's Book and Its Audience06:44 Practical Applications of AI in the Classroom08:08 Interactive Learning with AI19:54 Personalized Learning with AI22:30 Creative Uses of AI in Education28:19 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsTo learn more about the book, visit https://cmkpress.com/product/learners-apprentice/https://make.co/make-cast/

Dale Dougherty discusses the launch and evolution of Make: Magazine, a DIY technology publication, since its inception in February 2005.  The conversation includes insights from original team members Mark Frauenfelder, Dave Albertson, Shawn Connolly, and Paul Spinrad, as well as current editor-in-chief Keith Hammond. The magazine, launched amidst a declining print industry, aimed to share project instructions and inspire readers to engage in DIY activities. The first issue showcased a kite aerial photography project by Cris Benton, exemplifying ingenious solutions like using popsicle sticks and a Silly Putty Viscous Timer.  They reminisced about early decision-making, the importance of design, challenges in documenting projects, and how the community's growth influenced by Maker Faires. The script highlights the magazine's impact on the maker movement, transitioning into various mediums and reflecting on personal anecdotes from team members over the years. The call ends with updates on their current pursuits and the lasting significance of Make: Magazine.https://make.co/make-cast/

In this episode of Make:Cast, Dale Dougherty interviews Ellie Weinstein, founder and CEO of Cocoa Press, a company that manufactures 3D printers that print chocolate. Ellie discusses her 10-year journey from a high school project to launching the second model of her Cocoa Press printer. The discussion highlights her background in mechanical engineering, her experience with 3D printing, and the challenges of creating a unique product that combines technology and confectionery. Ellie also shares her experiences at Maker Faire, the difficulties of manufacturing in the US vs. China, and the significant milestones in developing and marketing her chocolate 3D printers. She explains how the company grew, the hurdles she faced, and the innovative culture and community support that are central to Cocoa Press.https://make.co/make-cast/

In this episode of MakeCast, Dale Dougherty interviews Steph Piper, a creative technologist from Queensland, Australia. They discuss her Maker Queen website, her Skill Trees project, and her new book, Skill Seeker Maker Edition. Steph shares insights into her role at a university library makerspace, her electronics kits for kids, and her GlowStitchLEDs project. The conversation also covers the development and application of skill trees as a tool for self-directed learning and maker engagement, as well as the importance of community in makerspaces.00:00 Introduction to Steph Piper and Skill Trees01:32 Steph Piper's Journey and Maker Queen02:59 Library Makerspace and Hands-On Learning08:45 The Concept and Development of Skill Trees20:57 Fun Projects and Final ThoughtsBook: http://makershed.com/skillseekerhttps://make.co/make-cast/

 "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 Mexico. They also discuss their involvement in the Fab 24 conference, showcasing workshops and the importance of breaking language barriers in STEAM education.https://make.co/make-cast/

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 is some ways the life story of Cy Tymony. Links: Science Friday episode from April 1, 2005:  Ira Flatow with Cy Tymony and Make: editor, Phil Torrone.  https://www.npr.org/2005/04/01/4571259/do-it-yourself-scienceCy's own website: http://sneakyuses.com/http://makezine.com

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 student should develop a creative practice, regardless of subject or area of interest.https://open.substack.com/pub/makered/p/maker-clubs-classes-and-hubsPrint - https://www.makershed.com/products/3-modes-of-making-print PDF - https://www.makershed.com/products/make-three-modes-of-making-pdfFor a transcript, go to: https://makezine.com/article/education/making-as-a-creative-practice/ http://makezine.com

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 really exciting, both about technology and creativity, is putting them side by side and seeing why we do things and considering what we can do given the capabilities of technology and our own imagination."   Pullen's curiosity about why he couldn't easily replace the batteries in his headphones led him to explore the reasons why repair has become even more difficult over time.  He wrote a multi-part series called "The Fight For Repair" on Design Spark.  https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/the-fight-to-repair-introThe global Right to Repair movement was a subject we featured in Make: Magazine Volume 80 last year,  The War on Repair.For a transcript, video and photos, check out the companion article on Makezine:https://makezine.com/article/electronics/design_to_repair/http://makezine.com

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 STEM, in a project-based way. The book aims to empower students and parents to explore AI technology and learn how to use it responsibly.https://www.makershed.com/products/make-ai-robots-printhttp://makezine.com

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 emphasizes the importance of a growth mindset and talks about the connection between making and coding, indicating both to be essential skills. He also shares his experience about launching his own online platform "Coding with Mr Wagner".http://makezine.com

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 castle into a boat -- a motorized floating bouncy castle.  He's now working with young people to create a solar-powered version.  Chris will bring the current version to Maker Faire Bay Areahttp://makezine.com

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.phpMoreno Valley College - https://www.mvc.edu/http://makezine.com

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 been involved in 3D printing since its emergence in the maker community.   Together they have come up with a way to teach math using 3D models that turn math into a hands-on learning experience for students. Book: https://www.makershed.com/products/make-trigonometry-printVisit Makezine.com for photos and a video of some of the objects discussed in this podcast. https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/trig-the-oldest-practical-math/http://makezine.com

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 Mellon with a degree in architecture and she got her master's at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI -Arc). While in LA, she was inspired by the creative space, Machine Project, that was developed by Mark Allen. And when she returned to Pittsburgh, she did odd jobs and such while she reached out to people in the community to join her in making and creating Assemble. Links: https://make.co/educationforumhttp://makerfaire.com/bay-area/https://assemblepgh.orghttp://makezine.com

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 make students stand out in the job market.

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 Making02:09 Michael's Background03:54 Stumbling into Fab Labs05:46 From Master Teacher to Master Learner07:57 Coaching12:06 Authentic Assessment18:44 Expanding from one school to many20:21 Pioneers and Settlers26:37 Blending Personalized Fabrication and Personalized LearningMake: Education Forum for maker educators will be held online on September 22-23. For more information, visit https://make.co/educationforum

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 is very different from the way the medical system normally works.

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 conversation is Jeff Johnson, who is with ChatLab in Chattanooga Tennesee and a friend of Galen's. Together, they were part of the founding of LVL1 makerspace in Louisville Kentucky.Galen talks about finding talent in makerspaces and helping them find jobs -- and he doesn't quite understand why some makers aren't interested in making money. He also has his own way of interviewing job candidates, asking them to bring and talk about a portfolio of their work as well as a hobby that is connected to their career. He's accomplished quite a bit with 57 patents to his name but no college degree. I see Galen as a kind of valuable prototype of a person, which I wish we knew how to create more of. I enjoyed this conversation with Galen for many reasons, as you'll see.

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 asked David Caulkins towards the end of this interview, how he was able to bring back, Robogames after a four-year absence, he said that his arena was so badly damaged in 2018 that he couldn't continue but an anonymous contestant offered to put up $1M to bring back Robogames.David is also joined by Ray Billings who has been competing in combat robot events for 22 years. His robot "Last Rites" was a previous winner at Robogames, and this year he'll be featuring "The Mortician," which is another variation of the offset horizontal spinner. Ray gives some great advice to those thinking about competing in combat robots: "start small", advice which no one seems to follow.

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. She is as bright as her many LED creations.

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 daughter, Jara, who has cerebral palsy to help her interact with a PC. His work has led to Microsoft Adaptive Accessories, which allows users to adapt devices using 3D printed parts. Make: editor Caleb Kraft has his own side project, The Controller Project, that he and volunteers around the world 3D print accessories for free for people to be able to game. Bryce, John and Caleb have a fascinating conversation about how these capabilities are changing lives.LinksMicrosoft https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controllerhttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/accessible-adaptive-devices-accessoriesOther organizations:www.makersmakingchange.comAblegamers.comwww.thecontrollerproject.comSpecialeffect.org.uk

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 startups, particularly in bio-manufacturing for food and medicine.

Jasmine Florentine's new book introduces making and STEM to middle-schoolers. The book, "Hex Allen and the Clanksmiths", creates a fantasy world where real problems are solved by hands-on skills. Jasmine is driven to help young people understand STEM, not just as a field of study, but as an opportunity to apply their creativity as well as intelligence. She believes if more kids knew what STEM really was, they'd realize it offered something for everyone -- a no-brainer.Jasmine has her BS/MS from MIT in in Mechanical Engineering. She's worked at FIRST Robotics designing play fields for robotic competitions. She lives in Israel but will be moving soon.

Dorothy Jones-Davis has been Executive Director of Nation of Makers for six years. She recently announced that she is leaving to join the KID Museum in Bethesda Maryland as Chief Impact Officer. In this episode, we talk about how Nation of Makers got started, some of its accomplishments and where it might go. I also asked Dorothy how working in this role has changed her as a person as well as in her career.

Jason Pohl calls himself a "pretengineer" because he's self-taught. Trained as artist, his design work has taken him from creating video games to actually designing and fabricating parts for Orange County Choppers. Jason moved into CAD design and working with CNC machines. He has boundless energy and enthusiasm as someone who is doing what he always wanted to do -- make things that are real. And it just might have been a high school art teacher who pointed him in the direction he would follow. She told him that all the things around him have been designed by someone and he could be that person.

Meet the winners of this year's Amazing Maker Awards. Our top winners come from the US and Canada, Turkey, Japan, and Germany and they are as young as 14. Their projects represent social impact, art, technical achievement and education. This is an audio recording of our October 4 Live Showcase in which I talked to our top winners about their projects.

I'd like you to meet Amy Zell - mother, librarian, grief counselor, and maker. In this episode, she talks about the power of making to change things, to change people. She credits Casey Shea, a Sonoma County maker educator with telling her about "maker empowerment" at the Fab Institute in Pittsburgh in 2018. She understood "maker empowerment" to mean the wherewithal to change things through making, and she applied it to her own life to move forward after suffering the loss of her son. Now she works with others who have experienced loss and trauma and she is weaving making into mental health practices. Frankly, I don't want to summarize her story here because you should really hear it from her.I can't think of a better way to explain to educators and parents how making changes lives than to hear Amy tell her moving story in her own words. For this conversation with Amy Zell, which took place this summer, I was joined by Casey Shea.

Authors of the new book, Make: Calculus, Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron talk about using Legos and 3D printed models to create visualizations that help anyone learn calculus. After we talk about the book, Joan and Rich show some of the models that demonstrate Lotka Volterra equations, for instance. You might prefer to see that portion as a video, which is available at: https://youtu.be/a0v4fUSFl2UFor a transcript and additional info, go to https://makezine.com/article/education/a-better-way-to-learn-calculus/Make: Education Forum link: https://make.co/educationforum/

Susie Frazier created the Maker Town platform for makers and artists working in Cleveland and Northern Ohio so that more people can find them and learn about what they make. Susie is a maker, creator and artist. Her own journey led her to Cleveland, Ohio, where she began developing her own functional and decorative art, working with stone and then organic materials. She hosted a TV show. Then she wrote a book called "Designing for Wellness." Through the pandemic. Susie realized that many people who made things were struggling to sell them and she wanted to help people find them. Susie Frazier wants to foster a local maker economy where makers are found and valued by members of their own community.

A refugee from TechShop in SF, Ryan Spurlock took what he learned there and applied it to a new makerspace called Humanmade located in the design district of San Francisco. Two things stand out about this makerspace. One is how it was funded: a local developer whom the City required to set aside funding for community development worked with Ryan to locate space and build it out. Second, Humanmade has worked with the City of San Francisco to establish a Next Generation Advanced Manufacturing training program.

Maker Faires are slowly coming back. After not happening for two years, Maker Faire Long Island took place in June at Port Jefferson Village's Explorium. Everybody was happy to come back. said co-producers of Maker Faire Long Island, Angeline Judex and Lisa C. Rodriguez. Angeline is the Explorium's Executive Director and Lisa is in digital media marketing for the science center. They share that with the makers back and families gathered, the magic was back.

Tyler Kerr runs the Innovation Wyrkshop, a makerspace at the University of Wyoming. During COVID, state officials saw the potential for makerspaces in vocational rehab and developing skills in local communities. And so they are funding the build out of a network of makerspaces throughout the state.Tyler and his students set out to build a safety pass, the Maker Access Pass that would allow students to be trained in one makerspace and work with machines in another makerspace. He believes that having standardized safety training as courses is important and he'd like to share this work with other makerspaces around the country.For more info, see https://makezine.com/2022/06/09/wyomings-maker-access-pass/.For info about Maker Access Pass, see https://www.makeraccesspass.com/

Makey Makey, a creative platform for children of all ages, turned 10 years old this month. In this episode, we talk with Jay Silver, the creative technologist behind the platform, and Jay Melican, formerly of Intel who runs the business. Jay Silver talks about creative play and learning, and the community that has grown up around Makey Makey.

DIY lifer Gareth Branwyn has compiled a new volume of his series, Tips and Tales of the Workshop, Volume 2. He joins Dale Dougherty to talk about how he collects tips — asking a person directly to share a tip is not very productive. He shares some of his favorite tips he has found. He talks about the aspirational quality of tips, how picking up an idea from someone can help us become better. Learn more about Frankenstein prototyping, that things aren't perfect in the vaults of a Gothic Cathedral and that details layer one on top of another.For more info:https://makezine.com/2022/05/09/shop-talk-and-tips-with-gareth-branwyn/

Julie Darling, author/educator/librarian, talks her book "Social-Emotional Learning Using Makerspaces and Passion Projects: Step by Step Projects and Resources for Grades 3-6". She is a Media Specialist at A2 Steam in Ann Arbor, CA. We talk about getting fidgety kids engaged and excited. She explains that a Makerspace can be a creative place for students and an opportunity to develop social-emotional learning, which are both personal and social skills.

Mike Senese has been the Executive Editor for Make: for almost nine years. He started on volume 36 and leaves now after wrapping up issue 81. Mike joins Dale Dougherty to talk about his experiences at Make: and Maker Faire, as well as working with the maker community. See ya soon, Mike Senese.

Determination seems like the best word to describe the collective response of Ukrainians as they fight for their country, for their home and their freedom. One month ago, I spoke with Yuri Vlasyuk and Svitlana Bovkun who live in Kyiv. That was the day Russia invaded Ukraine. I knew them because they were producers of Maker Faire in Ukraine. I wanted to find out how they are doing and what the maker community was doing during the war. A month later, one month into the war, we talked again to find how determined they are to do anything they can to help others and resist the invasion.For video and other info:https://makezine.com/2022/03/25/determination-makers-in-ukraine/To donate to makers in Ukraine, go to https://makerhub.org/support.

You might say that CNC is like a stepchild in the digital fabrication family, not the friendliest or easiest tool to get to know in the maker-space. Yet CNC is not something that most makers should be afraid of, especially as new software allows you to see in simulation what the CNC machine is going to do before you press go. In this episode, I'm joined by Anne Filson and Gary Rohrbacher, co-authors of Design for CNC. Both are professors of Architecture at the University of Kentucky and creators of AtFAB. @AtFAB_co @Fil_Ro @dalepd @makehttps://makezine.com/2022/03/21/fearless-cnc/http:atfab.co

My guest on this episode is Wayne Seltzer who is lifelong fixer himself. He started the U-Fix-It Clinic in Boulder, Colorado to help others learn to fix things. Wayne helped put the "you" in Fixit Clinics, making sure they empowered people to learn to do the repairs themselves rather than having an expert do it for them. Wayne's article in the current issue shares the story of how he started his own repair business one summer in New Jersey. You'll get to know Wayne and his life story from the kid doing repairs in the summer to an MIT student, to a Bell Labs intern to working at Sun Microsystems. Now retired Wayne is a technologist in residence at the "Blow Things Up" lab in the Atlas Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We talk about waffle irons, battery powered, lawn mowers, clogged vacuums, overheated hairdryers, transistor radios that his father worked on to digital radios that have become disabled by their manufacturers and all kinds of things that might be thrown into landfills when they could be repaired and reused. https://www.boulderufixitclinic.org/homehttps://makezine.com/2022/03/04/share-the-repair-with-wayne-seltzer/

Charles Helmholdt of Grand Rapids, Michigan designed and built a Kiddy Copter, based on the Bell 47 helicopter from the M.A.S.H TV series. In this episode of Make:cast, we talk about the how and why to build this ride for kids. What does stand out is that Charles likes to build things and he does it with and for his family. Kiddy Copter first appeared in Make: V76 in a Made on Earth article written by Mike Senese.A companion article to this video is available at: https://makezine.com/2022/02/23/kiddy-copter---a-family-affair/. It has links to video version, a transcript and a 100-page documentation of the Kiddy Copter build by Charles Helmholdt.

William Gurstelle is the author of many popular technical books, including Backyard Ballistics and the three-volume Remaking History. He has been a contributor of projects to Make: Magazine, and currently writes the Remaking History column, which features a historical invention that you can recreate at home. For the last three years, Bill has been enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota, studying the history of science and technology. The concept of maker's knowledge comes the history of science and represents the idea that the maker of something comprehends how it works better than anyone else.For links and a full transcript, visit: https://makezine.com/2022/02/03/makers-knowledge/

Over nine years ago, Raspberry PI was created by a small team, led by Eben Upton as a kind of academic side project. This single board computer was a PC without a keyboard, a monitor, any kind of enclosure, an inexpensive board that could be connected to power and other USB devices. It was completely open to whatever you wanted to do with. Raspberry Pi has had big impact by going small.For Volume 79 of Make: Magazine, our board's issue, Executive Editor, Mike Senese talked to Eben Upton of the Raspberry PI Foundation. They mostly talk about the technical details of the new Raspberry Pi's. An edited transcript of the interview, which was published in Make: Vol 79, is linked here:https://makezine.com/2021/10/27/eben-upton-raspberry-pi-exciting-year-new-pi-zero-2-w/

This preview of Respiracon II (January 29-30) features Robert Read of Public Invention and Leith Greenslade of the Every Breath Counts Coalition. They are starting a conversation around open source medical devices and how makers can work more productively when the next pandemic or other emergency happens. Link to Respiracon II: https://www.pubinv.org/respiracon_ll/

Julie Legault and Dr. Justin Pahara are the Canadian co-authors of "Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero," a hands-on guide to biotech experiments for the classroom, home and makerspace. Justin, a Cree scientist-entrepreneur with a PhD in biotechnology from University of Cambridge, lives on a farm in southern Alberta. Julie is a graphic designer from Montreal and an entrepreneur with a degree from MIT Media Lab. Together they started AminoLabs and wrote this book on experimenting safely and ethically with genetic engineering.Photos and URLs available at https://makezine.com/2021/12/16/leveraging-biology-to-make-things/.