Mind Hacks MakerBot Replicator impressions: the dawning of 3D printers in every home? There's something universally appealing about the concept of a 3D printer -- that concept being an automated system capable of turning computer code into real-world objects. I found myself forced to give a brief overview of the technology to AOL employees in our shared New York City office space after a particularly noisy initial run of MakerBot's Replicator. Reactions to such explanations tend to follow a fairly standard arc, beginning with wide-eyed wonder as one attempts to wrap their brain around the idea, followed almost immediately by a list of things they'd love to print out, given a chance. This is usually coupled with questions like "can it print food?" When we received an unexpected package from the folks at MakerBot last Friday, we realized it would afford us the opportunity to field some of these questions. MakerBot Replicator impressions: the dawning of 3D printers in every home? See all photos 31 Photos Even put together, the Replicator isn't all that slick. Comments
cargocycling.org | The SUVs of the Bike World (cargo bikes, cargo trike, cargobicycle, cargobike, cargotricycle, freight bike, delivery bicycle, city bike, long bike, cargo trike, bakfiets, dutch bicycle, dutch bike, freight bicycle, cargo bike, and bakfi Mappers' Wiki Thinking Dispositions: Thinking Dispositions: A review of current theories, practices, and issues by Shari Tishman and Albert Andrade Introduction What does it mean to be a good thinker? In an effort to account for the affective and attitudinal dimension of high-level thinking, many scholars and educators involved in the thinking skills movement have urged attention to what are often called "thinking dispositions." There are three parts to this document. Part Two is a brainstorm of issues and questions concerning thinking dispositions that occurred in the Summer of 1994 at the 6th International Conference of Thinking, held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Part Three is a bibliography of books, articles and programs that either are directly about, or relevant to, thinking dispositions. We recognize that, although interest in thinking dispositions has increased in recent years, it is by no means a new concept. Part One: Overview of Recent Work in the Field 1. 2. 3. 4.
Arduino Drum Kit This Piezo Drum Kit from Spikenzie Labs looks like it could provide days of fun. They provide interface software that allows you to output MIDI data from your Arduino that this kit is connected to. Thanks for the tip Andy, send us some pictures when yours is built! "The kit contains the electronic parts required to make a drum kit. This includes the circuit board, resistors, diodes and pins.
Turtle Lake Refuge - Durango, CO - Home How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code - Technology The programming website Project Euler provides a plan for how to learn anything in fun, discrete steps When Colin Hughes was about eleven years old his parents brought home a rather strange toy. It wasn't colorful or cartoonish; it didn't seem to have any lasers or wheels or flashing lights; the box it came in was decorated, not with the bust of a supervillain or gleaming protagonist, but bulleted text and a picture of a QWERTY keyboard. It called itself the "ORIC-1 Micro Computer." The package included two cassette tapes, a few cords and a 130-page programming manual. On the whole it looked like a pretty crappy gift for a young boy. It's not hard to see why. In less than an hour, the ORIC-1 manual took you from printing the word "hello" to writing short programs in BASIC -- the Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code -- that played digital music and drew wildly interesting pictures on the screen. No wonder Colin got hooked. More than all that, though, he learned how to teach.