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DARPA + Makers + School = the Future of Innovation
PerlJedi writes "The future of innovation in America is the Maker movement. A new project being announced on the Makezine blog aims to bring low cost innovation and alternative manufacturing processes to schools in hopes of turbo-charging the next generation of inventors in the U.S. From the announcement: 'The new Makerspace program, developed by Dale Dougherty of MAKE and Dr. Saul Griffith of Otherlab, will integrate online tools for design and collaboration with low-cost options for physical workspaces where students may access educational support to gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects. The program has a goal of reaching 1000 high schools over four years, starting with a pilot program of 10 high schools in California during the 2012-2013 school year.'"
My middle school had a grant, either from DARPA itself or something similar from the local Army base, and used it to develop an elective for 8th graders called "Explorations in Technology." Students worked through labs as teams, and could pick which labs they wanted to work on. One of the coolest labs, and one that was filled before I could snag it, was the CAD lab with a laser cutter where the student could design their own pendant (either with their initials, or some other design) and then have it carved out of plastic with a laser. The Makerbot will fit right into such technology labs in schools lucky enough to have them.
Other labs we had included building a model rocket, learning a few LOGO commands and creating a picture, learning not to be afraid of the guts of a PC (this is a slot! and it can hold add-in cards!), flying a space shuttle simulator, etc. This was 1994 - the labs today can probably include a lot more advanced things. This technology class replaced our shop class, though, so we lost the chance to learn to use buzz saws safely.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I built a CnC machine (Computer controlled milling machine) It's a hoot. Building a fabricating shop is not that hard or overly expensive; if you have the skills to build and use one I highly recommend it.
Patents are one of the few things you can get without a huge cost. They are within the reach of individuals. Defending them in court, on the other hand, can cost millions - so once you have your shiny new patent, expect companies to ignore it. The best you might manage is to sell it to a company that does have the resources to enforce it.
This is incorrect. You honestly think most people on slashdot are unemployed? They're mostly very well paid IT people and engineers with a dash of everything else. There is an extraordinary difference in the productivity of the average skilled American worker and the average unskilled Chinese worker.(unskilled Americans and skilled Chinese left out of the equation now). It is on the order of a hundred times as much. Pretending like a lack of technical skills is valueless is no way to address problems in an economy where unskilled and non-technically skilled people represent the vast majority of the unemployed. Your gloom-and-doom assertions have no basis in fact, and betray a bizarre Luddite attitude that seems contrary to the techy nature of slashdot.
It's just weird.
In U.S and, increasingly elsewhere, patents are a threat to any would-be innovator, whether in high-school, or at a university lab, or in private industry.
If DARPA really wants to enable innovation, it should pay for each high school to have a team of 20 patent lawyers.
I work with numerous H1-B coworkers. They are good people, on the whole and not deserving of contempt from just being foreign. On top of that, I am well payed in spite of whatever depressing effect they have.
What you're forgetting is that when you hire H1-B, you're bringing talent and skill into the U.S. and increasing the health of the U.S. economy. Moreover, they're paying the same rent/food/electricity/transportation/tax costs every other person living in the U.S. is too. The real risk H1-B poses to the U.S. is not "taking our jobs" as the very low unemployment in those fields indicates, but rather that we send these workers home after their visa expires, and lose all the knowledge they brought with them and gained during their employment.
It only "artificially" depresses wages if you consider their existence artificial. Personally, I'd be happier with a clear path to citizenship for H1-B workers.
There are so many things wrong with this comment that I don't know where to start. I'm 90% sure it's a troll, but I'll bite anyway:
The problem is that we live in a society where everyone expects success to be handed to them. In the U.S., the poorest of the poor have a standard of living that outshines the majority of the rest of the world. We're all taught to get straight A's through high school, get a four-year degree while amassing crushing amounts of debt, and then after that we'll be able to land a job with a six figure salary and join a union that will keep us from getting fired no matter how little work we actualy do. When that doesn't happen, we complain that the government isn't creating enough jobs for us and then sit back to enjoy nice free unemployment checks while waiting for an opportunity to fall in our lap. What. The. Fuck.
When (not if) China supercedes the U.S. as the new world superpower in the next decade or two, I sincerely hope my fellow Americans will get off their butts and realize that we need to *work* to maintain our standard of living and our place in the world. Even if it's unpleasant, even if it's not what we really want to do at the moment. Otherwise, I fear that I'm going to live to see the fall of the U.S. democracy. Given our history of foreign policy, I'm certain that the rest of the world will celebrate it much as we celebrated the fall of the Soviet Union.
"Makers" are apparently people who have built 3D printers and think that this is the be-all and end-all of manufacturing technology.
Sure, the fact that you can build one for $100 now is pretty neat. However, CAD/CAM was in vogue back when I was in high school. It indeed has changed the world, but not because anytime somebody wants a widget they take 3 hours to have some laser mill carve it out of steel.
3D printers, and CAM in general are great for prototyping, but they're not going to make a dent in the cost of finished goods. Right now maker bots can only make 99 cent plastic toys - which some guy in China can already make for two cents, and which probably costs $1.50 in materials to make using a 3D printer. If you want to make new gears for your bike then you're going to need something capable of cutting through hard steel, and that isn't going to be $50 and made out of plastic. About the only thing you'd save making such things yourself is any patent rights for the design, and those aren't much compared to manufacturing costs.
About the only thing manufacture-at-home is likely to be cost-effective at is counterfeiting currency - since its value is almost entirely fiat. I saw a neat documentary about some guy who was doing just that with casino chips. The neat thing about it was that when they finally traced him they couldn't arrest him since he lived in a state that didn't have legalized gambling and forging casino chips was consequently not considered a crime. He wasn't using 3d printers though - this was serious die-pressing equipment/etc.