On the 10th June 2010 Iain Major (a director from Bits From Bytes ltd) went to the annual Techlink conference to demonstrate RapMan. Techlink is a project supported by a local engineering company's charitable trust. Through this support secondary schools throughout the South West of the UK have been able to purchase CAD/CAM equipment that they would otherwise have not been able to afford . Over the last couple of years the charity has been purchasing CraftROBO machines (cutter/plotters) for every junior school (7 to 11 year olds) in the area.... But the good news is that
they are now looking at the possibility of providing a RapMan machine to secondary schools (11 to 18 year olds).
At the Techlink Conference Iain was able to not only demonstrate the RapMan but also to showcase some of the Teaching and Learning resources that are available on the BfB Wiki. Techlink are particularly keen to develop the project about wind turbines and Iain printed a steady supply of turbine fans throughout the event. The BfB demos were visited by dozens of young students who were amazed by the whole process... budding designers and engineers of the future J. A number of teachers and parents also visited the stand and were again bowled over by what they saw. One parent was so impressed with RapMan that he placed an order then and there!
Anyway, I'm really excited at the possibilities of this link with Techlink.... I'll post some more details as this develops.
Dave
PS The PowerPoint (shown here as a pdf) is available on the BfB Wiki
http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Promotion_Resources