We keep hearing from more campers who have built 3D printers with us over the last few years how they're helping out their local hospitals and care staff. This one from Rémi who built a printer with us 3 years ago ...
Rémi writes:
"I’m making face shields for all our local medical staff. I’ve made 600 since the start of this pandemic with my Anet A8, which I built at one of your camps 3 years ago. All my stock went to Nice hospitals in France because I live over there. Thanks for all you guys did to teach me 3D printing skills!"
Well-done, Rémi - it's great to see young people like you using their skills to help others in this time of crisis. Great job!
Does your child play too many computer games?
We often have conversations with parents who are worried their child plays too many computer games. Is it as bad as it seems? Believe it or not, playing computer games (within limits!) has some well-researched benefits.
Have you ever wanted to have a small model of your own head? With the amazing advancements in both 3D printing and 3D scanning technology, it is now easier than ever to achieve great quality 3D scans of small objects and print them yourself on any 3D printer.
If you were asked to describe a robot 10 years ago, you might have come up with something along the lines of a large silver box covered in lights and dials, with 2 arms, 2 legs and a human-like head – the reality of modern robots is of course quite different! Robotics and electronics in our daily lives are becoming more prevalent by the day, not just in labs and factories, but at home and in the office as well.
Nikola Tesla is a big name in Science & Technology, long before his name became synonymous with electric vehicles. A legendary engineer, inventor and futurist, Tesla was one of the early pioneers of alternating current and wireless transmission. Although known more for his work with electricity, Tesla had many clever ideas, including one of the most interesting valve designs you might have seen. Here's a modern take on visualising how it works using flammable gasess.
It's difficult to learn coding without access to a computer. We take it for granted in the west, but the affordability of a modern laptop makes it difficult in many places of the world. We recently had an opportunity to support REACT, a charity that was founded in the UK but supports young people in Ghana to access education.
On a cold Wednesday morning, myself, Tom and Pedro went down to Brighton to deliver a day of workshops for the Hijack Family Festival, part of a week long programme organised for children from 2-12 involving art, film, comedy, and science and technology. It was a non-stop day running robot wars, air rockets, our UV light workshop and crazy contraptions.
We've just finished running a rocketry activity at a corporate workshop for a BP team. This is a great activity as it can be done at multiple levels with all ages and abilities. With the more able (and adult) group that we had today we can cover a lot of ground in a few hours, exploring some theory as well as building and flying a couple of rockets.
3D printing has surged in popularity over the last few years. With many machines finally reaching affordable levels, access to software and tools being better than ever, and general awareness for this awesome technology always increasing, it’s easy to see why 3D printing is hitting the news so often.
This is about the third version now of our laser tag system for Tech Camp. Every time we've built a batch with kids we've made it simpler. This time we decided that we needed just one main PCB; it now has the batteries, sensors, microcontroller, LED display bank and associate circuitry on it.
Just finished our Easter Test Pilot again and had a terrific time. We had an Easter event last year but this time around we wanted to run a really small event just to try out our new courses for 2016. We figured this would both give us an incentive to develop the courses in a more detailed manner longer before the summer and also to be able to use the feedback of the campers to improve things for when we’re inundated with hundreds of campers in a few months’ time.