President Obama made a plea to “ensure that the Next Industrial Revolution in manufacturing will happen in America” and with the launch of the new MarkerBot Academy, it looks like it may already be happening.
The thinking behind the new academy is simple, get 3D printers into classrooms and let the next generation innovate for the future. Having joined forces with DonersChoose.org and Autodesk, MakerBot have launched a campaign to raise the required funds to make this happen.
The crowdfunding campaign is non-profit and will allow interested parties to donate to the project, which in turn will give both students and teachers access to MakerBot devices. The pack in questions that will be available is the truly epic MakerBot Replicator 2, three spools of filament and MakerCare support.
3D printing is already a big deal and has already paved the way for many technology innovations that range from the pointless to the amazing, people fixing toys to a man who 3D printed his son a prosthetic hand. MakerBot are making a great choice by getting the hardware required into the hands of students who can grow and develop ideas for the technology and it will be exciting to see what they come up with over the next few years.
Thank you MakerBot for providing us with this information,
Image courtesy of MakerBot.
Quite a few UK schools have had 3D printing etc for quite a while now…