I got invited to the White House today by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. President Obama declared June 12-18 National Week of Making. The President put out an open call for new commitments in support of the Nation of Makers Initiative.
Inventables responded with a commitment to donate a 3d carving machine to a school in each of the 50 states.
Here’s the full blog post and the entry form to apply.
Very cool!
Awesome, Zach! I just put the word out to my friends on Facebook. I know quite a few teachers and have some pretty close ties with a couple of the local schools. I’ll make sure their applications get put in. 
One thing that I hope does not through a monkey wrench in this good idea is that most schools in the US have closed down there wood shop and metal shop classes because a student may get hurt.
I know that the 3D carver that Inventables is developing in in an enclosure so it is far safer than say a metal lath or table saw. Will the school boards still just look at it as a machine.
I hope I am totally wrong here.
Dave
Let’s change that!
I totally agree. The US is starting to have a problem with not having enough trades people to fill the jobs that trades people who are part of the 70 million baby boomers that are retiring.
So long as the school admin people think that all there students need to go to collage and become doctors, lawyers, and computer programmers then shop classes will continue to be cut for our schools.
Dave
Is this still an on-going thing with Inventables?
Asking because my community has finally started to get seriously interested in Making and our main public library here in Newport News, VA has opened a mini-Makerspace. Right now that space has very limited equipment (a Brother programmable sewing machine, two Cricut machines, and an Ultimaker II 3D printer.)
As the library director tells me that the city has plans to open similar mini-makerspaces in every library in the city (that’s four more libraries), I’ve been talking up the idea of including an X-carve or Carvey in their Makerspace(s). The library director seems interested and I thought that it would really get the ball rolling here if Inventables might be willing to donate a single machine.
Just a Christmas wish I guess.
We have donated and shipped all 50 machines. We have a map where we are tracking others who have bought or had them donated.
