The 2016 Holiday Gift Guide for Awesome Young (and Old) Makers

The 2016 Holiday Gift Guide for Awesome Young (and Old) Makers | It's the time of year for gift giving, and what better gift to give to a child (or adult) than something that encourages creativity? Here's some of my top picks for gifts for young (and not so young) makers

I normally tend to stay away from “stuff” lists when it comes to talking about makerspaces.  I believe that the stuff that goes into a makerspace should be based around the needs of the students and the school, not on a checklist of items to get.  But this list is different.  The holiday season is … Read more

4 Reasons Why I Love Copernicus Carts in Makerspaces

4 Reasons Why I Love Copernicus Carts in Makerspaces | Finding the perfect makerspace storage solution can be tricky. I now have three Copernicus carts and they've revolution storage and accessibility in our makerspace.

Why I love Copernicus Carts In setting up a makerspace in my media center, I’m constantly on the lookout for effective, flexible storage solutions for the myriad of supplies we have.  I think I’ve found one of the best ones out there in Copernicus.   I started with one Book Browser Cart (similar to this one) … Read more

Build of the Week: K’nex and littleBits Laser Cannon

  There’s something about teenage boys and an obsession with weapons and war-games.  My students had been building all sorts of crazy machine guns lately, so I decided to try to harness that interest by challenging them to create laser-cannons.  We combined several different littleBits with the guns made out of K’nex to create different … Read more

A peek at our future Maker Corner

A few days ago, I tweeted out this image of our future Makerspace that I created in Skitch on my iPad.  I was inspired by The Nerdy Teacher’s post on rethinking his classroom setup, and I wanted to create a visual that could show what our space will be like when it all comes together. … Read more

Makerspace Wishlist Part 3: Engineering Tools

(This is part 3 in a series of Makerspace Wishlist posts.  See Part 1: Electonics and Part 2: Technology and Robotics for more.  Please note, this post was originally written in 2014 and some products may have changed or been discontinued since then) Engineering Tools When it comes to engineering tools, there’s really two major juggernauts: … Read more

Teen Tech Week: DIY @ Your Library

Since the official Teen Tech Week coincides with my district’s spring break, we held our Teen Tech Week activities the week before.  Many of them were so popular, that I’ll probably keep them going the week after as well. The K’nex have been an amazing addition to our library.  I’ll see students constantly tinkering with … Read more