Public-Private Partnerships That Work - Part II

A new project, announced on the Makezine blog, aims to bring low cost innovation and alternative manufacturing processes to schools in hopes of turbo-charging the next generation of inventors in the U.S.  This is very cool stuff!

Dale Dougherty of MAKE and Dr. Saul Griffith of Otherlab, through an award received from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will integrate online tools for design and collaboration with low-cost options for physical workspaces where students may access educational support to gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects.

Their goal is to reach 1000 high schools over the next four years. They are starting with a pilot program of 10 schools in California during the 2012-2013 school year. The Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) program is part of the DARPA’s Adaptive Vehicle Make program portfolio and is aimed at engaging high school students in a series of collaborative distributed manufacturing and design experiments.

Read the article at : http://blog.makezine.com/2012/01/19/darpa-mentor-award-to-bring-making-to-education/