New Videos Spotlight Adam Savage at Bay Area, California Fab Labs, Makerspaces on Chevron-Sponsored U.S. Tour
BOSTON, MA (PRWEB) May 26, 2017 -- Renowned digital designer and maker Adam Savage’s website, Tested.com, debuts videos shot at two innovative spaces in the California Bay Area; a high school fab lab and a children’s hospital makerspace. The Fab Foundation and Chevron sponsored the recent visits.
The visits are part of a national tour that celebrates the impact of digital fabrication and making in education and youth development, business and entrepreneurship, and invention. They feature interactive demonstrations from participants at labs, which reflect diversity in people and place.
Partners seek to expand awareness of the power of new tools, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, CAD design and robotics. “This is a brand new way of doing things,” from the perspective of schools and other institutions, Savage said, while on tour. The videos on Tested.com show highlights of this innovation.
At the Santa Clara High School Fab Lab, he saw tangible, usable high-tech solutions the students are creating from equipment in the lab, such as vinyl cutters, milling machines and saws.
They were especially excited to show off prototypes for a football tee prototype for a design challenge provided by the San Francisco 49ers. Former NFL player and Super Bowl champion with the San Francisco 49ers, Jesse Sapolu participated. “What a fun way to make cutting-edge technology relevant for young people,” he said.
Olympic gold medalist, former U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team player and Bay Area native, Brandi Chastain, also attended the tour and demonstration. “Having this incredible, hands-on experience in high school will help fuel their futures,” she said.
The young innovators attend the 49ers STEM Leadership Institute, created in partnership with the San Francisco 49ers, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and the Santa Clara Unified School District. It is a six-year program that prepares students with high academic potential for college and opportunities in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).
Savage also toured Maker Therapy with the Stanford Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer program within Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, where innovation and creativity are infused into patient care. As therapy, young patients participate in workshops using the maker space and equipment to create innovative projects. Savage saw a workshop demonstration and interacted with adolescent and young adult cancer patients.
Savage is an internationally renowned television producer, special effects designer/fabricator, host, maker and public speaker. His model work has appeared in major films, including Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded. The former cohost of Discovery Channel television series MythBusters and producer of Tested.com has partnered with Chevron and the Fab Foundation for the national tour of fab labs and maker spaces.
“The Bay Area is a leader in innovation. With the emergence of Fab Labs and makerspaces of all kinds, the ability to innovate has become far more accessible. Thanks to Chevron and Adam, we are able to highlight a wide range of spaces and the impact they are making,” said The Fab Foundation’s Chief Implementation Officer, Sonya Pryor-Jones.
The Bay Area visits occurred on April 19, 2017. Other tour stops include Pittsburgh, Austin, Boston, Detroit and New Orleans.
A Fab Lab is a carefully curated digital fabrication laboratory comprised of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade design, fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and supported by programs written by researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms. This platform for learning and innovation is a place to play, create, learn, mentor and invent—while joining and engaging with a global community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators. There are 1100 labs in over 100 countries.
The Fab Foundation was formed in 2009 to facilitate and support the growth of the international fab lab network as well as the development of regional capacity-building organizations.
It is a U.S. nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization that emerged from MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms Fab Lab Program. The Foundation’s mission is to provide access to the tools, knowledge and financial means to educate, innovate and invent using technology and digital fabrication to allow anyone to make (almost) anything, and thereby creating opportunities to improve lives and livelihoods around the world.
Contact: Sonya Pryor Jones
The Fab Foundation
http://fabfoundation.org
info(at)fabfoundation(dot)org
Becky Gaylord, The Fab Foundation, http://www.fabfoundation.org, +1 (216) 970-7185, [email protected]
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