Students from Darlington’s Robotics team spent a portion of their fall break meeting with and learning from other makers at the Atlanta Maker Faire at Decatur High School in Decatur, Ga.
The DarBots attended the festival last Saturday as co-hosts of an exhibit booth sponsored by the Berry College Maker Academy Team. The team, which creates and tinkers at the HackBerry Lab on the college campus in Rome, is made up of several area students and faculty members that got to share their innovations and ideas with participants at the two-day Maker Faire event.
Those in attendance representing Darlington's Makerspace were Ash Herndon ('17), Ian Kinney ('17), Philip Woford ('18), Technology Integration Coordinator Rebekah Kinney, Technology Integration Specialist Beth Wardlaw, and Science Department Chair Owen Kinney.
“The Atlanta Maker Faire is a unique opportunity for our student makers to ‘talk shop’ with experts from around the Southeast," said Owen Kinney, who also serves as the Robotics team's mentor. “Visiting booths and engaging with remarkably creative individuals inspires our students to develop new projects and to seek greater collaboration in their communities.”
One of the festival's many interactive highlights found in the Maker Academy's booth was an oversized game controller known as Controller Grande.
The project, recently completed by Darlington students, drew many visitors to the space who were interested in not only learning more about its inner-workings, but also in taking it for a spin. The console is inspired by the design, software and hardware of the familiar Nintendo Entertainment System, and connects directly to a television for users to engage "shoulder-to-shoulder" in many of the classic competitive two-player games.
"It is important for students to learn how to build things because it not only gives them a sense of accomplishment, but also helps with learning mathematics and science,” said attendee Philip Woford.
Other installations and demonstrations at the weekend event included 3-D metal printing, cast molding, various items constructed from PVC piping, a harmonograph, flying drones overhead, a gravity car, homemade go-kart racing, and a giant exo-skeleton for visitors to peruse. Representatives from Google, the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST LEGO League (FLL) were also present to inspire and answer questions from fellow makers.
“Being a part of a maker culture helps you to get involved with the S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) community, giving you more opportunities to learn and even teach those fields,” added Woford, who participated in the Maker Academy's S.T.E.M. camp last summer at Berry. “It’s the future, and being familiar with it will really help prepare me for that future. Additionally, it's just a lot of fun.”
Also on the DarBots team but not present at the Atlanta Maker Faire were Elliot Kinney ('19), Sirius Liu ('18), Jonathan Pieroni ('19), Mary Margaret Wright ('16), and Chelsea Ye ('18).
Editor's Note: Last year's Robotics team placed 37th in the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in St. Louis, Mo., after earning a spot as an alternate in the national competition and winning the Georgia state and regional competitions.
