The Rhode Island Mobile Maker Lab pulled into Johnston High School last Wednesday and for two days, eight to ten students at a time had the opportunity to visit the lab and participate in a variety of hands-on demonstrations. The demonstrations each had one thing in common: they illustrated for students what the types of manufacturing jobs of the future will be, and the types of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics skills that are needed to successfully work in those jobs of the future.
The mobile lab is a collaborative state effort, sponsored by IYRS, Polaris MEP, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island Commerce Corp. and the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, and has been traveling to work with students at high schools and colleges all over the state for approximately one month since its official unveiling.
Housed in the lab were four stations; a vinyl cutter, a Brother touch screen computerized embroidery and sewing machine, a Carvey wood-carving machine and a SINDOH desktop 3D printer. Each of those machines were coupled with software to program them and the students were able to create their own carved wooden piece, vinyl decal, embroidered design, or 3D printed item to take home with them, utilizing the hardware and software together to create them. The stations were facilitated on Wednesday by Seth Weisman, designer and development manager for the lab, and Chris Oliver, a partner in the project from the IYRS School of Technology and Trades in Newport.
As the students entered the lab, they were asked about their general interests, their previous knowledge of any of the machinery used in the lab and what their thoughts were about life after high school. Both Weisman and Oliver would also make connections to what the students were currently learning, and how it applied to the projects they would be working on in the lab that day.
“You’ll be able to see how geometry applies to the work we do with the vinyl cutter and the embroidery machine,” Weisman said to one group.
He explained how the embroidery machine worked on an x/y axis, and worked together with a pixel-based program and how the files were converted using a free online software, with all code generated through the computer and uploaded to the machine. He described how the vinyl cutter used a subtractive process to produce an image, and talked about what that meant.
“We are using coding to tell the Carvey were to go,” said Oliver as he helped the students choose an image online which would then be carved into a wooden square, each square taking approximately 10 minutes to be carved.
As the students toured the lab, their eyes were also drawn to the walls around them, which are created out of white board material and filled with information the students could use to learn more about the tools they were working with or more about the lab itself.
“As we’ve made more and more stops in the lab, we’ve been able to really identify what our hooks are with the students,” said Weisman. “We’ve found that working with smaller groups for a couple of hours is easier and we can go more in-depth with them. In future visits, those students can help to teach other students what they learned. Peer to peer instruction makes it easier.”
The Mobile Maker Lab will be scheduling spring visits at many of the schools they have started out visiting in the fall, and will also be featured at this week’s CS4RI statewide computer science summit being held at the Ryan Center on the University of Rhode Island campus. For more information about the lab, visit the website at www.rimakerlab.com.
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