There was a gathering at the old Blue Ridge Elementary School on White Mountain Boulevard in Pinetop-Lakeside, and everywhere you looked, someone appeared to be sparked with creative ideas and seemed fascinated. It was a gathering to celebrate the opening of the Fab Lab. The Fab Lab might be fabulous, but it gets its name from fabrication, that is, high tech digital fabrication. The Arizona Fab Lab hosted an open house.
The lab is the result of joining of the STEM (which stands for science, technology, engineering and math) learning project at Blue Ridge High School with the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Cooperative Extension 4-H program led by Steve Gouker with Blue Ridge Science teacher, Kevin Woolridge. Gouker also resides in Pinetop-Lakeside.
Blue Ridge Schools have the only 4-H Fab Lab in America.
The program is open to any student who is a 4-H member in Navajo or Apache County and they are welcome to come to Blue Ridge to use the equipment after school, while the lab remains open to all the Blue Ridge students.
