Introducing DrN

I've been an engineering professor at Trinity since 1998, teaching courses in Electrical Engineering and Design.  This makerspace course is something pretty new for me.

I've always been mechanically inclined - my father taught me to make things - with wood and auto mechanics.  My latest auto project was a full rebuild (new crankshaft on up) of my 1999 honda civic, though my 17 year old son would say it's 'his' car:

I started messing around with the laser cutter back when it was in the back corner of the electronics shop, and did a pretty large project on the shop-bot last year (a box for camping that holds pots/pans/stove/etc - you'll notice a lot of scout projects in my portfolio :) )

Ryan Hodge, Wilson Terrell, and I began talking about some sort of a maker course last year sometime.  We decided that the only way it was going to happen would be to 'divide and conquer' - Mr. Hodge is working on technical skills and processes, I'm in charge of pedagogy, and Dr. Terrell is in charge of PR and funding. I'm exited to see what this semester will bring.

My latest project is another scout project, done for my older son's Eagle Court of Honor (then donated to the Council for others to use).  The whole thing was modeled in fusion360,

he plexiglass was cut with a V bit on the ShopBot, and the plywood was all cut out on the shopbot.  Then I painted the uncut plexiglass and wired LED bulbs behind each section.  We went through about a half-dozen surface treatments on plexiglass before we found a procedure that looked right.

My hope is that each of the students in this class will develop not only a facility with the tools in the class (laser, 3d printer, cnc), but will develop the maker habits of prototyping things many times before building, failing quickly and overcoming quickly, and stretching what you think you can do.