Kids Tech Club offi­cially ran for six weeks this fall and then begins again in Feb­ru­ary. To keep some momen­tum going, the kids in the fall ses­sion are going on a field trip in Decem­ber. We’re going to visit the 3D printer, 3D scan­ner and CNC Mill and Lathe (com­puter numer­i­cal con­trol) at the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa’s Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing. It’s going to be so cool! Sev­eral par­ents are com­ing since they are as excited as the kids. We’ll get to see the machines in action as well as learn about how they work and hear about the future of design and engi­neer­ing in rela­tion to these tools. The lab we’re going to is in the midst of a trans­for­ma­tion from a machine shop that made tools for fac­ulty research to a stu­dent lab. The direc­tor is apolo­getic about the chaos, but I think the kids learn­ing about this switch and how it could one day ben­e­fit them is a bonus.

More infor­ma­tion on 3D print­ing and how it will change our world from the Econ­o­mist: The Printed World

Here’s one of the UI’s 3D print­ers in action:

 

I’d love to do more STEM field trips with Kids Tech Club so if you’ve got any ideas, please pass them on.