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On Saturday, November 13th, UTeach Maker partnered with ACE Family Maker Space to host the second workshop of the Fall semester. This workshop focused on using still objects to create moving contraptions powered by a crank.

On Friday, October 29th, UTeach Maker partnered with The Foundry Maker Space to host its first workshop of the Fall semester. The workshop focused on using 3D printers and Makita Drills to create a shadow box.

Tuesday, September 7th, marked our first fall cohort meeting of 2021. It was the first time we have seen each other in person since the pandemic so what better way to start off than having a team challenge.

Making’ brings ideas to life through the acts of designing, inventing, and building something personally meaningful. As an instructional approach, making can harness the processes of fabrication to promote specific learning outcomes. To support this innovative teaching practice, Noyce recipients at the University of Texas UTeach program (Award #1557155) can participate in UTeach Maker, a micro-credentialing program that helps preservice STEM teachers bring maker-centered instruction into learning environments.

On Sunday November 18th, Eric Schneider, founder and CEO of PATCHR.io was back for the second part of the create your own printed circuit-board (PCB) workshop. After the first workshop, UTeach Makers uploaded their PCB designs that were created in PATCHR.io. Over the past month Eric and his crew reviewed the designs for errors and milled them on their Bantam Tools desktop PCB milling machine.

On Sunday October 21st, Eric Schneider, founder and CEO of PATCHR.io was in-house to teach how to create printed circuitboards (PCBs). This workshop took making with electronics to the next level by introducing the software and skills needed to make a custom circuitboard with LEDs that blink and fade. Eric provided numerous examples of circuitboard that could be worn as badges or pins, such as french fries with yellow LEDs or a light-up Christmas tree.

On Tuesday May 1st, UTeach Maker hosted out monthly cohort meeting featuring the Maker Showcases of our Spring 2018 UTeach Maker Fellows. The evening started off with an opportunity to our UTeach Makers and Mentors to share projects that have been working on in a Maker Playground. Lauren Siegel of MathHappens shared some of her laser-cut manipulative for teaching about mathematics, Alex Morrison invited people to participate in sewable project that she will be hosting at the 2018 Austin Maker Faire, Jason Harron shared 3D laser-cut art based on Voronoi diagrams, Mao Leonard demonstrated projects she has created in Scratch, Halle Herzog dazzled with her brightly colored threaded flowers, and Arami Rosales defied gravity with her magnetic levitated vehicle track.

Shelly and Jason hosted a UTeach Maker Showcase workshop on Sunday April 8th to help prepare our upcoming graduates from the program for their portfolio review. About half of the current cohort were there to discuss what they wanted to include in their maker philosophy, to try-out ideas for their maker-centered lessons, and to work on designing their maker projects.

On Tuesday April 3rd, UTeach Maker welcomed everybody back to Painter Hall for our monthly cohort meeting. It was great to see everybody and hear about the progress that you have made on your maker projects and showcase. Maker Mentor, Patrick Benfield, shared with the cohort about a MakerEd Regional Summit that will be taking place May 5th at Maker Faire Austin.

On Tuesday, March 6th, 2018 Austin was a buzz with the national maker community, as MakerEd.org held their annual meet-up for SXSWEdu. The event was organized by Stephanie Chang from MakerEd.org, who also serves as a portfolio reviewer for UTeach Maker, and hosted at Magellan International School by UTeach Maker Mentor Patrick Benfield. With over 100 local and national maker educators in attendance, the presence of UTeach Maker could easily be spotted as our cohort proudly wore their burnt orange shirts.