Page 22 - THE Journal, March/April 2019

22
| MARCH/APRIL 2019
FEATURE |FAB LAB
Brent Richardson, who directs the BakerRipley
Fab Lab in Houston, took on a DIY project to cre-
ate sensors that could let homeowners in the vicinity of Lake Houston Dam track water levels more accu- rately. Now he’s using that project to teach K-12 and college students about how their STEM efforts could have real-world application for their communities. Photo courtesy of Chevron.
But the devastation varied widely. People were affected differently depending on where they lived. Brent Richardson, who lives a couple of hundred feet from the Lake Houston Dam, for example, said his house didn’t flood. Whereas the house right along the lake belonging to his in-laws did.
That experience led Richardson, who directs the BakerRipley Fab Lab in Houston,
to take on a DIY project to create sensors that could let homeowners in the vicinity of the lake track water levels more accurately. Now he’s using that project to teach K-12 and college students about how their STEM efforts could have real-world application for their communities.
Cultivating a Community of Makers
BakerRipley is as embedded into Houston as any nonprofit could be. The community development organization has existed for 112 years, with centers all over the region, delivering a multitude of programs addressing healthcare, job connections and financial help, preschools and Head Start, senior care, disaster recovery, utility assistance. What it didn’t offer was a maker space.
That changed in 2014 when BakerRipley began planning its next community campus in East Aldine, a state management district that crosses into Houston’s city limits. During planning sessions, residents there told the organization they wanted to teach their kids more science and expose them to technical fields that would help prepare them for the future.
Armed with a hefty grant won from Chevron and the Fab Foundation, when the new center opened in 2018, it included a 5,000-square foot maker space intended to serve as a technical resource for K-12 and university students and the rest of the community.
That space was outfitted with laser and vinyl cutters, 3D printers and scanners, an electronics station and a computer lab, a CNC mill for making circuit boards and a large- format CNC router for cutting plywood, as well as fully equipped metal and wood shops. The grant also enabled “Fab Lab Houston,” as it was named, to set up a 32-foot trailer with a mobile unit containing much of the same type of gear, all if it loaded onto carts with wheels so that the equipment could either be used on board the trailer or offloaded and set up as labs inside schools.
The STEM Education Angle
As soon as Fab Lab opened, it began working with BakerRipley’s youth programs to develop “Young Makers,” an after-school program offered at several middle schools around Houston two days a week. As Richardson explained, “youth staff” are trained