FabNewport, the fabrication laboratory and technology center in the north end of the city, will be expanding its maker program into the city’s public schools in September.
Jennifer Robinson, librarian and teacher at Thompson Middle School, and Pell Elementary School STEM teachers Lori Delemos and Mary Nordby, were among the 230 people present Sunday evening at FabNewport’s Maker Party at the Casino Theatre on Freebody Street, where guests helped create custom bobbleheads and viewed projects students created at the FabNewport lab in the Florence Gray Center.
Steve Heath, executive director of the nonprofit FabNewport, said he is conducting a three-day professional development course later this month for 10 teachers from all three public schools in the city, including Rogers High School.
The fab lab provides students with access to modern means for invention and industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and programs written by researchers at the Center for Bits & Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The concept behind a fab lab grew out of a popular MIT class called “How to Make Anything,” which still is offered.