December 26, 2016 9:32 pm

Tuesday, Learn More About the Maker Movement from Bill Nye and Chuck Nice

Do you know what the maker movement is? If you don’t, then tomorrow night’s episode of StarTalk All-Stars is a pretty good place to find out. It’s part 2 of our Maker Mix, with Bill Nye and his co-host, Chuck Nice. In the episode, Bill answers fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about the movement, which is basically a trend that combines the best of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) with the hacker ethos.

As you may have learned in last week’s Part 1, an important aspect of the movement revolves around 3d printing, aka “additive manufacturing” – a process whereby a printer applies layers of substrate via nozzles, not unlike those of an inkjet printer, to build up an item in a single fabrication that might otherwise have been made from many individual pieces. For instance, a propeller can be 3d printed as a one-piece unit, as opposed to welding blades to a central hub. Makers have fabricated 3d printed prosthetic hands, working vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, cars and other vehicles, 5-story office buildings, houses, jewelry, sculptures, tools, and food using this technology. NASA has even 3d printed items in space on the ISS.

But the maker movement is more than just 3d printing. It encompasses computer programming, and drones, and bots, and homegrown agriculture, and, well, frankly, attempting to limit the maker movement is shortsighted at best and foolhardy at worst.

For instance, many makers tend to be concerned with recyclable materials and alternate sources of energy. Some fight for net neutrality and open source code. Some turn to trade and barter as alternatives to more mainstream retail. And many attend the increasing number of Maker Faires held all around the world, from major cities like San Francisco and Paris to local, community driven Mini Maker Faires in Durham and Urbana.

Of course, if you are a maker yourself, you know all this, in which case you definitely want to listen to Bill Nye the Science Guy answer questions submitted by makers like you – and, if you sent in a Cosmic Query when we asked earlier this year, maybe he even answers your question.

And if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode yet, you should probably catch up on Maker Mix with Bill Nye, (Part 1), too. Elements of both shows originally appeared in other podcasts, in segments brought to you by Google as part of their Making Science with Google initiative. For more information, visit makingscience.withgoogle.com.

Please join us Tuesday, December 27 at 7pm EDT right here on our website, as well as on iTunes Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this episode commercial free, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons