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SoapBoxDerbySTEMfair

7/24/2022

AASBD STEM Fair

The Soap Box Derby held a STEM Fair at their race day July 23rd. Participating companies included FirstEnergy, Rockwell International, University of Akron Sports/STEM and robotics, Ellet Library, American Winds, Akron Fossils and Science Center, Rubber Division of American Chemical Society (ACS), Soap Box Derby, Derby historian Ron Reed, Props & Pistons, STEMSports, Skyhawks Sports Academy, and NEOStem…and me.

I loaded up my 2 cases and brought many ideas to share, but really focused on two. The main one was “build a car with stuff”. The “stuff” included cardboard, wood, pop bottles, straws, coffee stirrers, toothpicks, pipe cleaners, buttons, cardboard circles, bottle tops, and beads. Luckily one company didnt need two tables, so they gaveit to me to put all those materials on. “My” table had some hot glue guns and my other challenge.

The second challenge was “battery & bulb”. Light up an LED with one CR2032 battery. Then we could issue challenges like how many lights can you do on one battery, how many colors can you get on one battery, what colors work together. On this table I also had a microbit running an LED strip that was rolling through rainbow colors. A couple of kids asked about it.

It was a fun day of watching and building. It was a little breezy most of the day then around 1 p.m. a storm started coming in and things really started blowing around, so we had to pack up a little early (supposed to go til 2 p.m.), but most everybody was heading for cover anyways.

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DesignTemplates

7/1/2022

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I love design templates for drawing (since I cannot draw well).
I also love making and DIY.
I want kids to be able to make their own thing, what they need or want.
So the question was how to go from store bought templates to your own

A Twitter friend recommended this mylar product.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PVYHH4M
12”x12” sheet that is 10 mil thick. NOT balloon mylar.
I measured it to be 0.26 mm (mil is another measurement) and closer to 1/64th than 1/128th of an inch, so I verified what it is/should be :

Now I also wanted to play with https://cuttle.xyz , a browser based design site. I created a file with some shapes that would fit on a 12” x 12”. Then I used the “Export SVG for Cricut” since I don’t have a laser (i would like to try to create these with a laser because it would be faster).

I imported into Cricut Design Space and tried to make it using various settings on the dial….to no avail. It was scoring the material, but not cutting through.

I ended up going to the hamburger in Design Space (three lines) and “Manage Custom Materials”. I was looking for the highest pressure number for my Cricut Air 2 and how I could set something to that. I found “Stencil Film - 0.4 mm” and set the cut pressure up to 349 and three passes (350 is the highest). It cut through most shapes. So I changed it to 4 passes. It finally worked for all 3 shapes. (I changed my cut file to be only 3 shapes instead of all of them)

This might be the extreme edge for the Cricut Air 2 (hence the Cricut Maker) , though you could always add passes.
Or I might need a new blade
Or you could try the 7.5 mil material…
A laser cutter would be a nice option also.

Now kids can make whatever drawing/painting template they want.

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