Jacobs School engineering demos at the first San Diego Maker Faire

Engineers for Exploration will demo some of their tech at the first-ever San Diego Maker Faire this weekend.

Jacobs School engineers are out in force at this weekend's first-ever San Diego Maker Faire. The event, which takes place Oct. 3 and 4 in Balboa Park will bring together tinkerers, techies, hobbyists of all stripes, educators, artists, crafters--and more.

The event is organized by the City of San Diego, The Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, the San Diego Makers Guild and Tijuana Innovadora.

UC San Diego contributions to the event include:

-  UCSD Robotics will demo the MiP balancing robot at the Robotics Zone
- Engineers for Exploration will demo an automated camera trap, high-tech birds' nest finders and LiDAR scanning, also at the Robotics Zone
- The Qualcomm Institute's high-tech OptIPortable display walls will visualize a mock dig site at the Family Zone
- QI researchers will display several drones at the Drone Zone.

In addition, Jacobs School professors Thomas Bewley (robotics), Steve Swanson (comptuer science) and Falko Kuester (structural engineering) plan to give talks during the event, along with research scientist Curt Schurgers and Ph.D. student James Strawson.

The Global TIES program will be taking over the Jacobs School Instagram feed during the event (@UCSanDiegoengineering).

More about UC San Diego events at the Maker Faire here.

More Maker Faire info at http://sdmakerfaire.org/

Other Jacobs School-affiliated exhibitors include:

. IEEE UCSD

 SEDS@UCSD

 The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers at UCSD

 Divergent Engineering of UCSD

Triton 3D

 Triton Rocket Club

UC San Diego Autonomous Airplane Team

Global TIES 

This Jacobs School Ph.D. student is now a toy maker

Just because you're about to get a Ph.D., it doesn't mean you have to stop playing with toys--or at least making them. That's the lesson we take away from the career trajectory of one of our graduate students here at the Jacobs School.
We caught up with Nick Morozovsky at the booth for the toy company Rokenbok at the Bay Area Maker Faire May 17 to 18. The Solana Beach-based company recently partnered with Kid*Spark, an organization that aims to make STEaM and Maker education more accessible and fun, and created an Open Source Library of building parts that can be 3D printed. That's where Morozovsky comes in. He set up the library for Rokenbok and created an interface that allows users to 3D-print customizable parts as well.
While a 3D-printer hummed nearby, Morozovsky explained how the library worked. Meanwhile, kids were building catapults made of Rokenbok pieces and playing with remote controlled vehicles.
The booth later won an editor's choice award from Make magazine. Morozovsky plans to graduate sometime this year. We'll see where his next adventure in toy land takes him.

David Pogue talks about the making of NOVA's Making Stuff at Maker Faire, of course

From skiing in a 100-year blizzard to diving with sharks, David Pogue, the host of PBS's popular NOVA Making Stuff TV series, has done it all. Saturday, May 17, he gave a standing-room only audience at the Maker Faire Bay Area, an insider's look into the show's making. We were there and live-tweeted the event and you can see your tweets below. Bad news: the program has run out of funding.
Side note: we were hoping Pogue would mention Making Stuff Safer, which featured the Jacobs School's shake table, but it was not to be.

In 2001 NSF gave $3M to Nova to make a miniseries about materials science. @Pogue hosted this year.
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Shark skin: nothing sticks to it: replicate in a material. @Pogue swam w sharks for that show. Attracted w fish guts.
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

"David you must ski faster of you'll sink." Austrian skier to Pogue in 100 y blizzard for Making Stuff Colder. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Liquid carbon dioxide thermo syphons keep permafrost frozen around Alaskan oil pipeline. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Hag fish slime as the next fabric of the future? @Pogue #MakerFaire even stronger than silk
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

You would not believe what's going on w robotics and bio mimicry. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Got made up to be a Neanderthal and walked the streets of SF. No one even blinked. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Got stained with mr fluid for science. Stuff that they make high tech bumpers from. @Pogue #SFmakerfaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

I tickled a penguin and it jut got turned on. Handled bees for cancer killing venom. @Pogue
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

NSF cutting back #novapbs funding. No more shows in pipeline. @DavidPogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014