Lots of good stuff in this report, titled "Factory @ Home", which was commissioned by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
It ends with these recommendations:
This report recommends the following actions be taken.
1. Put a personal manufacturing lab in every school
2. Offer teacher education in basic design and manufacturing technologies in
relation to STEM education
3. Create high quality, modular curriculum with optional manufacturing
components
4. Enhance after school learning to involve design and manufacturing
5. Allocate federal support for pilot MEPs programs to introduce digital
manufacturing to regional manufacturing companies
6. Promote published and open hardware standards and specifications
7. Develop standard file formats for electronic blueprints design files
8. Create a database of CAD files used by government agencies
9. Mandate open geometry/source for unclassified government supplies
10. Establish an “Individual Innovation Research Program” for DIY entrepreneurs
11. Give RFP priority to rural manufacturers that use personal manufacturing
12. Establish an IP “Safe Harbor” for aggregators and one-off producers
13. Explore micropatents as a smaller, simpler, and more agile unit of intellectual
property
14. Re-visit consumer safety regulations for personally-fabricated products
15. Introduce a more granular definition of a “small” manufacturing business
16. Pass the National Fab Lab Network Act of 2010, HR 6003
17. “Clean company” tax benefits should include efficient manufacturing
18. Offer a tax break for personal manufacturing businesses on raw materials19. Fund a Department of Education study on personal manufacturing in STEM
education
20. Learn more about user-led product desig
Comments
@Andrew -- "All of this stuff has been developed without government intervention or encouragement. Why on earth does anyone think that getting the government (of any flavour) involved will improve it?"
Bingo. You hit the nail on the head.
STEM? MEP? RFP?
Where are you going to get the parts, Digikey ? I've spent my entire adult life building electronic products in Thailand and Greater China. Small concerns finding parts they need can be a barrier.
This is a wonderful idea to get schools involved, but science museums would be a better.
How about funding trips to museums and libraries, getting major industry leaders and inventors to visit schools ad infinitum.You could put a billion dollars worth of equipment in a school and it probably would'nt change a darn thing unless there are people who know how to use it as a tool to encourage learning other things and make them think. Ask yourself what made you successful and creative. If you are honest it was a person, not a piece of equipment. My inspiration was Igor Sikorsky and my father, not any gadget. Inspire the kids to create and think instead of giving them more mindless toys to play with. Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-technology. It is just that most students need role-models, encouragement in their lives not more gizmos. Albert Einstein's spark was bus ride and his imagination, Newton (allegedly) simply pondered a falling apple. There are great people in our schools that do inspire children. Sadly the greater majority of them are chased out by all the politics and stupid laws.
I spend more time proving to the state that my technology class includes social studies and literature to meet state standards laws than developing curriculum and professional development to be an effective teacher in my own subjects.
Please politicians, do not try to help any more! You just make it worse.
duane I agree to many politicion are more interested in getting a quick hit in the ratings then really fixing things. but if done right I see this as being this a step in the right direction because this isn't about grades or shoving facts down kids heads its about sparking imagination and creativity.
these machines could give kids chances to use what they've learned to make somethng they can hold in there hands that existed no where else before they made it. that simple event is far more motivating and long lasting then any test score or lecture could ever be. you're own nephew is a great show case of what someone motivated can do, but most people home life is not set up to help creaitivity grow and as Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"
its not about teaching kids skill they need for a job its about teaching then skills they need for life in my view.
If autocad files were made available all that would do in schools is give them an excuse to throw a few million to Autocad for software that the schools may not need. Of course not a single politician asks the teachers about education. Been teaching for 12 years and never been asked anything nor has any teacher I know. What do I need as a teacher? Student accountability, parent accountability and administrative accountability.
The No Child Left Behind Act itself shows that the politicians who write these things are uneducated. How can 90% of students perform in the top quadrille of scores? A mathematical impossibility unless the 90% all have the exact same scores and the other 10% have a perfect distribution in the lower quadrilles. Bunch of morons, of course it is all their teachers fault that they were allowed to graduate from high school without learning simple mathematics and common sense.
Database of CAD files seems interesting. Public access?
Mandate open geometry/source for unclassified government supplies.. what does this mean?
First off, Chris, congratulations on getting recognition for the work you are doing bringing new approaches to business to light. It is well deserved.
Regarding how this relates to what is taught in our schools, I'm very skepical of anything coming out of the federal governent with regard to public education. It seems we are always trying everything but what has worked before. I guess that's because it's not progressive. I remember "open classrooms." More recenlty it's been "outcome based education," then "no student left behind," etc. etc. etc.
I can see these novel approaches to manufacturing being taught in business school, but to try and recreate DIY Drones or Adafruit in every high school, well, I'm not sure it will be tax dollars well spent.
I'm probably just shooting from the hip and missing something deep, but there it is.
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