Imaginary Glorp Gum becomes a reality! Sort of! Disney World Luau bowl 2013 Hugo nominees announced Nevada State Legislature poised to take regulation of Burning Man away from state and local cops Assyrian Dalek, ca. 865 BCE New Bob Basset mask with added angularity Embarrassingly obvious undercover cops take to Twitter looking for house shows Imaginary Glorp Gum becomes a reality! Sort of!
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 31, 2013 12:06 pm Artist Brad McGinty has a new website celebrating the fake history of Glorp Gum, best described as Bazooka Joe by way of Rat Fink.
Read in browser Disney World Luau bowl
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 31, 2013 09:49 am Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily designed this beautiful Polynesian Luau Bowl for an upcoming Walt Disney World special event. It'll sell for $35, but the on-sale date isn't announced yet. Summer's coming...
Read in browser 2013 Hugo nominees announced
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 31, 2013 09:27 am This year's Hugo Award nominees have been announced, and it's a great slate! Congrats to all the authors, artists, fans and editors who are up for the award in San Antonio, Texas this Labor Day weekend. Best Novel (1113 nominating ballots cast) * 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit) * Blackout, Mira Grant (Orbit) * Captain ...
Read in browser Nevada State Legislature poised to take regulation of Burning Man away from state and local cops
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 31, 2013 08:58 am M Otis Beard sez, "A bill gaining support in the Nevada State Assembly would make Burning Man hands-off for state and county law enforcement officials, and subject only to Federal authority." Each year, the local sheriff has been jacking Burning Man for increasing per-head fees, and the county's conservative lawmakers have been passing silly-season unconstitutionalities, ...
Read in browser Assyrian Dalek, ca. 865 BCE
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2013 09:08 pm From Wikipedia: "English: A large wheeled Assyrian battering ram with an observation turret attacks the collapsing walls of a besieged city, while archers on both sides exchange fire. From the North-West Palace at Nimrud, about 865-860 BC; now in the British Museum." File:Assyrian battering ram.jpg (Thanks, Justin!)
Read in browser New Bob Basset mask with added angularity
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2013 05:54 pm A new piece from Ukrainian steampunk leather mask-maker Bob Basset. I like the angular forms here -- there's something a bit Roman in it, to my eye at least. DW new. Steampunk Art Leather Mask
Read in browser Embarrassingly obvious undercover cops take to Twitter looking for house shows
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2013 03:21 pm Internet-savvy indie musicians organize "house shows," which are pretty much what they sound like: a fan lets the band use her or his house for a performance, and other fans come by and hear it. The shows aren't legal, but they're pretty fun*. Boston cops have taken to Twitter, posing as punk kids, trying to ...
Read in browser Meet SparkTruck, an “educational build-mobile” for the twenty-first century.
Dreamed up by a group of Stanford d.school students and funded through Kickstarter, SparkTruck is a mobile maker space currently traveling across the United States. At schools and summer camps and libraries around the country, the SparkTruck team offers workshops to help kids “find their inner maker” as they design and build projects like stamps, stop-motion animation clips, and “vibrobots.”
[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmRKXqDwieY&feature=plcp]
This might seem all shiny and new. And it is—but only in part. What’s so striking (and exciting) about SparkTruck is the way it combines old and new. It does so in the tools it gets kids using, which range from pipe cleaners to laser cutters. It does so in its educational approach, which combines cutting-edge (get it?) STEM and design pedagogy with the fundamentals of an old-school shop class. And it does so in its method, which combines the iconic, century-old technology of the bookmobile with the hot new form of the maker space.
In doing so, SparkTruck joins a growing number of libraries which are combining time-tested principles (like equal access to information) with new technologies (like 3-D printers), putting in maker spaces and media production labs alongside bookshelves and meeting rooms. As I’ve argued over on bookmobility.org, these combinations make sense because reading and making actually have a lot in common. They’re both creative processes that take existing materials and combine them in new ways. Getting people engaged in those kinds of processes—through imaginative thinking, contemplation, hands-on problem-solving, and collaborative learning—is what both maker spaces and libraries are all about.
Taking that commitment on the road with scissors and hammers and 3-D printers and a great big bookmobile-like truck, SparkTruck serves as a laboratory for new approaches, as well as a reminder that trying new things doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t!) necessarily mean tossing old ones out.
After all, what would those vibrobots be without classically crafty pipe cleaners and tongue depressors? And what would a library be without the creative, participatory, straight-up awesome experience of reading?
SparkTruck schedule [sparktruck.org]
How to arrange a visit from SparkTruck [sparktruck.org]
SparkTruck YouTube channel [youtube.com]
Signature: --Derek Attig, bookmobility.org
No comments:
Post a Comment