The majestic mesas and canyons of the Navajo Nation – an area mostly in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico larger than the entire state of West Virginia – might seem an unlikely place to delve into robotics and computer code writing.
Dan Frank knows better.
For him, it’s the ideal location to exchange ideas about those topics and learn new ways of looking at them. The University of Florida mechanical engineering doctoral student spent the fall semester working with Navajo high school and college students as part of the research for his doctoral dissertation.
One of his main goals: to work with the community in developing a makerspace where the Navajo can promote science, technology, engineering and math education through making.
He describes it as “half research, half action.” Frank, 29, spends three days a week teaching a course on…
