UMW COE graduate students Jane Clair Bishop, Valerie and Kelsie LaSalata provided demonstrations of 3-D printing at the Festival of Community Makers.
Students from UMW’s College of Education provided hands-on demonstrations of new technology at the Central Rappahannock Library’s Festival of Community Makers on Saturday. The Festival was held at the England Run Branch of the Library, from 2 p.m. through 5 p.m. and featured exhibits and demonstrations by local artists, craftspeople, and maker groups.
Mark Frauenfelder, author of Made by Hand and the editor of Make magazine, was the featured speaker at the event. Graduate students from the College of Education demonstrated 3-D printing, Makey Makey alternative input devices, and a LEAP motion controller, new technology that allows a user to control a computer by hand motions and finger gestures. Undergraduates enrolled in the education program provided attendees the opportunity to test their design skills by building and launching paper rockets and creating flyers for a wind tube. The demonstrations and hands-on activities were developed by COE students working in UMW’s two makerspaces, the ThinkLab and the LearnerSpace. University Librarian Rosemary Arneson also provided a demonstration of e-textiles as an example of work being done in the UMW makerspaces.