DESIGN SQUAD at Maker Faire | Botanicalls | PBS

http://www.pbs.org/designsquad
DESIGN SQUAD Host Nate Ball and contestant Deysi Melgar are at Maker Faire 2007 in Austin, Texas, looking for the most creative engineering and coolest inventions they can find. Maker Faire is a "two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset."

Now your plants can tell you loud and clear when they need water...by calling your phone! Nate and Deysi talk about the "Botanicalls" project with Kate Hartman and Rob Faludi from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU.

Borrowing from the hugely popular reality competition format, DESIGN SQUAD is aimed at kids and people of all ages who like reality or how-to television. Its goal is to get viewers excited about engineering!

Over 13 episodes, eight high school contestants tackle engineering challenges for an actual client—from building a machine that makes pancakes to a "summer sled" for LL Bean. In the final episode, the top two scorers battle for the Grand Prize—a $10,000 college scholarship from the Intel® Foundation. Check your local listings to find out when you can watch DESIGN SQUAD on your local PBS station.

For more about DESIGN SQUAD, check out the official website at
http://www.pbs.org/designsquad

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• PBS
• Design
• Squad
• WGBH
• Maker
• Faire
• Austin
• Make
• Boston
• Engineering
• DIY
• NYU
• ITP
• Botanicalls
• Plants
• Mobile
• Phone
• Invention

[kingpav]

What a disgrace...I'm amazed these so called "inventors" managed to get away with this. If they based their degree on a little Arduino project then they should be ashamed of themselves.

People have been making these for years, 12 years ago we were making these in school but they didn't call you they just switched on a 12v pump.

Botannicals can't patent these as there are many online projects where people have been making them... just googe Garduino.

[chrisjc24]

Very cool - the people who invent these things are fascinating. Tell them to speak up next time, though - with all the background noise, it's hard to them sometimes...and I don't want to miss a second of them!!