Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show! - science

Lilypad Heartbeat Pendant!

Dadmin — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:46:57 +0000

Mini

Ep. Number

A quick project for makers, it's the heart beat pendant!

Using an Arduino, a pulse sensor, some scrap, and a few LEDs, this project is a medium easy weekend project for any maker, and it's cool to see you're still alive! Also in this episode, learn about your heartbeat, blood, and photoplethysmography!

See this post on MakeZine.com

Season

My CRAZY DC Adventure

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:44:59 +0000

WHite HoUse SCience FaiR? WHaaa? This month has been crazy!! Robogames 2013, TWO Science Fairs, and an interview with Bill Nye and Levar Burton... in the same week?! HOLY MOLY!!!

Just a few weeks ago, I got a call from the White House staff, and they invited me to go to their 3rd ever science fair! Last year, Joey Hudy got chosen to go for making awesome kits, and got to show off his big orange marshmallow cannon. This year, MAKE magazine and Cognizant nominated me to come! The most insane part was that I only got one week warning, my school 6th grade science fair was on the same day as the white house one, and we’d have to leave on the last day of Robogames!!! OH NOEsS!!

Luckily my dad helped organize and put together a fundraiser on gofundme, and we raised the full goal amount in less than a day thanks to all the awesome people who donated and helped get the word out! WOO hoo!

On the Thursday before the Science Fair, I left to San Mateo to compete in Robogames 2013 with my WaterColorBot paint pen plotter (fill wrap-up post coming later). After an exciting couple days at Robogames (and winning a silver medal!), I boarded a plane to Washington DC, with my robot and project board all wrapped up in my awesome custom made carrying box. I was SOOOO excited!!

We got to our hotel at 2am, slept ‘till 6am, got dressed all fancy, then left for the White House! (Not much sleep. :P)

When we got there, I was checked by security and led to the room where I was supposed to set up in. I didn’t have much stuff to assemble, so I had a ton of time to figure out exactly how I would do my demo, and what the heck just happened. Craziness!!

After about an hour, some people started to come by and I showed off my WaterColorBot. My demo worked with a Raspberry Pi as the computer, and connected to the iPad with a WIFI adapter that my dad help me make into an access point. After all of the other kids set up and looked around, we went outside and had some lunch and talked with lots of important people. After lunch settled down, I got interviewed by Levar Burton and Bill Nye!! Oh My Gosh!

At 12:30, the science fair officially opened to the rest of the staff and VIP’s that got invited. I talked to a BUNCH of cool people and really had some fun talking with them all about how the bot works, how I came up with the design, and how I think it'll be perfect for girls my age to get into engineering with once we make it into a kit. I also talked lots and lots about other things I liked doing, plus all about my show.

I hadn't had much sleep, but even though I'd been standing and talking for hours, I was totally pumped. It's hard to describe, but getting up there and talking about something awesome that you know pretty well, that people really want to hear, and have interesting questions about, is a lot of fun, and you wouldn't think so. But it is.... and I knew I had to hold out for the POTUS!

When it was time for the president to come in, all the regular people were moved into the entry hall. He then came in, said hello and started talking to the first booth. After a few teams/groups had talked with the president, I was next! He walked up, said hello and shook my hand. We talked, and then he held up my watercolorbot painted picture of the white house logo the press, and lots of camera shutters went off. He then talked with me a bit and drew something on the iPad for the bot to draw, “GO STEM!”. At the end he shook my hand again!! I was thrilled!

Meeting the president was so incredible and exciting! I had a TON of fun in Washington DC and I really hope to go there again. Even though I got to meet the president, I’m still just regular old me, and I think any kid my age could get to be where I was, if they just don’t give up and keep going at their crazy ideas. Even if nothing new happens because of my trip, I’ll be sure and keep my friends at the White House forever.

Tags

White House, Science Fair, WaterColorBot, paint, away, Washington DC, Barack Obama, Bill Nye, LeVar Burton, interview, Joey Hudy, science

TEDx San Jose Women welcomes Sylvia on December 1st!

TechNinja — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:08:40 +0000

You heard us right, our very own "Super-Awesome" Sylvia will be speaking from the heart this coming Saturday December 1st, 2012 at TEDx San Jose California!

Sylvia will be talking without a script; all about the show, the importance of summer vacation, and what she thinks is most important in learning. It won't be perfect, but she'll be doing her best, it's only a webshow after all! She'll also have a few tangible surprises for the audience thanks to our awesome friends over at MAKE Magazine.

She'll also be joined by some amazing people on stage, including her friend Jack Andraka she met at TEDx Redmond back in September. At only 15 years old, he helped create an incredibly effective and cheap test for various types of cancers, which helped him win over $100,000 and the grand prize at the 2012 Intel Science Fair.

If you think you can make it, click here to sign up! For the rest of the world, the conference will be streaming live during the event, with details to come on the official Facebook page.

Also, don't forget to keep up with Sylvia live during the event for thoughts, exclusive pictures, and more on her official twitter account.

Hope to see you there!

Tags

TEDx, TEDx San Jose, conference, women, away, science, talk

We're at Maker Faire Kansas City 2012!

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 02:51:46 +0000

Hey everyone! Even though we didn't finish our Maker Faire Bay area posts yet, here we are at another one, Maker Faire Kansas City!

Last year we didn't have nearly enough time to explore, so we this year we stayed for a whole week! We went to the absolutely incredible MCC FabLab and made wooden trinket boxes on their laser cutter, then off to the HMS Beagle Science Store for the MakeKC meetup, pizza and looking at all their amazing stuff.

Then I got to teach some Science City Day Camp kids all about squishy circuits, and how to solder for the very first time!! They all did really great, learened a lot, and left with their own blinky Maker Faire robot pins they made all by themselves!

Then we met up with our maker buddy Joey Hudy and did a bunch of other stuff, eventually getting to go to the absolutely amazing Hammerspace!!! Sooo cool!

A LOT happened so far, with even more still to come! Techninja will help write it all down in a blog post soon. See you out there!

Tags

Maker Faire, Maker Faire KC, away, fun, Joey Hudy, education, Science City, Hammerspace, science, FabLab, KC

DML wrap up, MAKE Photoshoot, and more...

TechNinja — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:49:08 +0000

Another amazing adventure in sunny San Francisco March 1st-3rd for Sylvia and I, off at the fabulous Digital Media and Learning Conference 2012!

Getting up at 5am, and driving over Thursday morning, Sylvia was happy to take the next two days off school to be part of an amazing gathering of teachers, superintendents, professors, entrepreneurs and educators/students of all stripes smashing together to try and make sense of how the web and maker culture is transforming how learners teach, and how teachers learn.

Thursday at 10am had Sylvia up on stage with her now good friend Gever Tulley, creator of brightworks school and all around incredimaker, and other new awesome best friend, Jess Klein, big brain behind Hackasaurus. We were the very first “featured” panel, and this was our very first panel ever! I found it pretty nerve-racking, but Sylvia had plenty of confidence for both of us though, especially after the cheers she got for her demo video.

Once we finished the panel, we grabbed lunch with a few new friends from Mozilla, then headed back to our room to rest for the big event that night: the DML Science Fair! At 4:30pm we headed down to the floor to setup, with a TV, my laptop and three hunks of kitchen light diffuser with buttons and copper pads glued to them messily wired up to an Ethernet enabled Arduino, we were ready!Also setup on the table apart from our Squishy Space race demo (playable here) was a screen playing Sylvia’s Squishy circuits episode, some of our favorite MakerBot printed items, and a soft circuits musical instrument made of ribbon.

Soon, hundreds of eager Press and other science fair patrons began flooding the room, with almost every one at least glancing at the odd sight of three people occasionally jumping up and down and yelling at a TV screen trying to control space ships with lumps of green conductive dough. It thoroughly amazed me how many people enjoyed the game enough to stay for more than 5 minutes (one game last about 1 minute and automatically resets). Though we don’t yet have a budget for handouts or stickers, I think people still got to walk away with something memorable.

On Friday, after peeking in on a few sessions, it was off to the incredible California Academy of Sciences. Our very first time, Sylvia was unstoppably ecstatic. It is truly an incredible place, full of animals, plants, specimens, the worlds largest all digital planetarium, and so much more, we stayed until they closed and still didn’t see everything. Sylvia’s absolute favorite moments: Getting to ask a scuba diver questions while he was in the water (and anything else to do with the aquarium), the planetarium show (completely awe inspiring!), and the incredible butterflies and frog specimens in the rain forest room. We hope to make it back soon with the rest of the family and possibly see the rest of what it has to offer, but chances are by then there will be even more to see! Somehow, we're actually OK with that.

After a long day immersed in science and exploration, we retreated back to the hotel to prep for one final trip: MAKE Headquarters for a cover photoshoot!

Arriving only an hour late for getting lost, we found our way to the Beautfiul shooting location in Occidental California, where after a bit of hair and makeup work (and 4 changes in wardrobe), Sylvia was hung up on a harness and fussed over by photo professionals for at least 2 hours before they finally got just the right shot. Still, lots of of fun, and One day Soon Sylvia may just be on the cover of a Magazine.

Up next for us, we’re heading off to the The Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium in San Francisco for their OpenMake event all about Tools. We might just get to meet my childhood idol Tim Hunkin! Oh the places you can go, when you get out there to make something...

Tags

DML2012, away, conference, California Academy of Sciences, plans, science, OpenMAKE, Exploratorium

Holiday Gift Guide 2011

TechNinja — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:05:42 +0000

Our latest Make Holiday Gift Guide is now out! Check it out at the link and let us know how you like it. It's a bit shorter than last years, but still quite fun.

Be sure and leave a comment, and remember that even if it's a bit too late to grab these in time for you favorite holiday, any time is a good time to get the maker you love a fun kit or make a custom personalized thingamawhatzit.

Also as news goes, we'll be ramping things up a bit in the new year with more blog posts, more full episodes and better organization (we hope!) so that more people can get the help and inspiration they need to "Get out there and make something!"

Be sure and leave us a comment here if you'd like to see something cool or just want to say hi, or use the submission form above. We read everything and get back to everyone eventually.

Tags

gift guide, home, chemistry, fire, science, forensics

Make your own no heat Lava Lamp

Dadmin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:15:14 +0000

Mini

We'll show you how to make your own groovy lava lamp, no heat required! All you need are a few things you just might have in your kitchen.

Ep. Number

See this post on MakeZine.com

Favorite Comments

nemoDaedalusThis simply is the best Make has to offer nowadays. I subbed for the Weekend Projects, I wanna watch people actually make stuff. And I don't see that anymore. It seems Make only has vids of already completed projects: "So you guys made a fully automatic pingpong table?" Ok, I want to SEE people create a fully automatic pingpong table, and then learn from it! And imo only Sylvia shows how to do stuff - and throws in a little chemistry lesson while she's at it.
YesIamJamesAwesome video. I hope that kid keeps her passion for science.
kaikaipandaHaving studied chemistry for years, I can say this girl is gonna be a frigging amazing scientist!
musicalmike235You know, this is one of the few youtube video series hosted by a kid that is actually good. I mean it. She is actually really good.
audiomodderyou guys should see if you can get this on PBS. i would totally bribe my kid to watch stuff like this.
lptangcuangcothumbs up if you saw the oil molecule change emotion!
airsofteerSo now you have to decide whether you want to learn about molecular polarity or matter states!
TheSupertecnologywhat?! a child can work for makemagazine?! why didn´t anybody told me?! i´m going to get job now!!!

Season

Off to Maker Faire, part 2: Kansas City!

TechNinja — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 06:24:46 +0000

This year, the Kauffman Foundation has graciously offered to sponsor Sylvia and I to be a big part of their Kansas City Maker Faire. We incredibly honored to be brought halfway across the country just to see and be seen by our fellow makers.

We plan on doing multiple group sessions on things we've done before (Molding/casting, ALTAlarm), and a few new-to-us classics (Mr. backpack, No heat lava lamp). We also hope to bring kids and adults together to make some simple things they can take home and be proud of (Crazy Putty, Chicken in a cup). It's going to be great! See you there if you're coming, and if you can't make it, we'll be posting some photos to Flickr and a video to come.

Tags

Maker Faire, Maker Faire KC, Kansas City, away, Vacation, science, Union Station, Kauffman Foundation

Two more episodes of the Mini maker show

Super-Awesome Sylvia — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:27:45 +0000

Sylvia makes Crazy Putty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc3OF7HIYng

See this post on MakeZine.com

Sylvia makes sidewalk chalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTSaGrGL2TA

See this post on MakeZine.com

Hey guys! Sorry I've been so busy, but we just finished the last of three summer themed mini maker shows for Make online, and here they are! Have fun and be sure and comment.

Tags

chalk, fun, goo, Make Magazine, mini, polymer, sidewalk, science

Sylvia makes Crazy Putty

Dadmin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:20:31 +0000

Mini

Ep. Number

Welcome to our second episode of Sylvia’s Super Awesome Mini Maker Show! Hey! Did you know you could have fun making extended polymer chains at home with household chemicals? You bet you can! Today we’re going to make “Crazy putty!”

For this super squishy build we’ll need:

At least 4oz of white school glue (not the washable kind)
A Measuring Cup
Borax (used for cleaning)
2 bowls for mixing
And some food coloring if you want it to look cool.

First, put one cup of water in a bowl, then add in 1 teaspoon of borax (be careful not to get any in your eyes), stirring till it dissolves completely. Keep stirring! Next, take 4 oz of glue and mix it with a half cup of water in the other bowl. If you want super-awesome color putty, add the dye to the glue and water now. When it all looks ready, you can slowly pour the borax solution into the glue, and watch as it thickens up immediately before your eyes.

The glue is what’s called a polymer. Polymers are like a bunch of tiny chains inside the glue that keep from flowing like a regular liquid, and help it stick to things. When you mix in the, borax, it acts like a linker, connecting and extending all the little polymer chains of glue to form a bunch of much longer chains.

All this chain lengthening stiffens the glue and water mix, and makes it much harder to move around. It makes it almost not a liquid anymore, though it will melt if you leave it alone long enough.

Try experiment with changing the glue to borax ratio, freezing it, or letting it melt through stuff. Just make sure to not get it in your hair, clothing or carpets! Have fun and remember, get out there and make something!

See this post on MakeZine.com

Favorite Comments

mts0628Good video. if you don't like the runniness of the putty after you make it, then simply roll it in your hands; the heat from your hands and agitation will dry any excess water present. Also, you can do the same thing with equal parts of liquid starch and white glue. Fun fun fun!
ShadowJay11I think she just proved she has a higher intelligence then most people on youtube!
crafty25936ive watch 2 mini maker shows and they really are super awsome, she is gonna make kipkay lose his job
obeyme3I've never heard a child say "extended polymer chains" before.
EmpowerizationYour videos rock! mini maker show is awesome!
TheSolitaryPoetBest Make video ever!
captwasabi"Chemistry rocks!" Sylvia is my new hero!
mrdoornbosThis is one of my favorite videos on YouTube of all time. Love it!
owenmck100gr8 stuff! Well produced, entertaining v instructive, memorable. I'm impressed! thanks
TheFounderUtopiaThis is kid is so awesome, but I'm not sure I can get past the fact that I'm so intimidated by a child's intellect.
steadfast1984my kids love this segment of Make. dont stop!!!
holmoletaI absolutely love the outro song!
Loki95531The paper clip animation was great! Way to go kid!