Rounding up a group of students and busing them downtown for a field trip is no easy task, especially for districts on the outer edges of the county, which is why Fab Lab El Paso is bringing its makerspace to schools with the launch of its Mobile STEM Lab.
The mobile lab made its first trip Friday when it visited Montwood Middle School. Groups of students spent an hour learning basic coding on smartphones while others rotated between stations, using virtual reality headsets to experience riding a roller-coaster or watching a laser cutter create miniature moose – the school’s mascot – out of cardboard. Others took three-dimensional “selfies” with a 3-D laser scanner.
Cathy Chen, co-founder and executive director of Fab Lab El Paso, likens the lab’s makerspace to a playground.
“It’s a place where you can experiment, it’s a place where you can let your imagination run wild,” she…