The Haleakala Times
November 04, 2005
Maui Media Lab teachers focus on music, media, alternative energy for students young and old
Their motto is “empowering the community to serve itself,” and Maui Media Lab is actively working with children, citizens and a variety of supporters in the community. They offer research and development and advocate expanding knowledge for a better tomorrow. Maui Media Lab Foundation is a grass roots operation supported by Maui Media Lab, The Children’s Science Center, The School of Music, Science Media Netcasting (smn.com), and many more collaborations.
Maui Media Lab, located at 71 Baldwin Avenue in the Paia Plaza, offers a wide range of classes and services in digital, audio, video, sound, and lighting production. One of the goals of Maui Media Lab is to provide a place where the community has an outlet for creative and innovative ideas and an opportunity to work with the technology towards a brighter future, economically and environmentally.
Currently in a consulting partnership with The Goodfellow Brothers, Inc., Maui Media Lab is creating an ecological lighting system, which will greatly reduce the amount of energy put into our atmosphere while reducing energy costs. LEDs (light-emitting diode) have an extremely long life span, twice as long as the best fluorescent bulbs and twenty times longer than the best incandescent bulbs. New homes built here on Maui will furnish the consciously creative cost-effective and energy efficient system.
Maui Media Lab is the research and development behind Science Media Netcasting (www.smn.com) and works with The Willie Nelson Biodiesel Co., “Bio-Willie,” to promote biodiesel to end users at various locations in the states of S. Carolina, Georgia, Texas and California. To learn more about the distribution locations, visit: www.wnbiodiesel.com
The Children’s Science Center, located at Maui Media Lab, is currently exploring two projects, which will educate the younger generation of the benefits of biodiesel.
The Maui Cup Challenge Race, now in its third week of progress, is putting together teams of students by participating schools and each team is going to raise their own fuel crop. The students will plant, grow, harvest and convert sunflowers into biodiesel fuel and learn the benefits of its environmental and economical impact first hand.
Each team will then be provided, through the success of their own crops, or through Pacific Biodiesel, one cup of biodiesel, and their objective is to build a vehicle, which will run the longest with most efficiency, by graduation next June. If interested in participating, contact Maui Media Lab at (808) 579-9887.
Hard at investigative work, The Children’s Science Center, is also “demonstrating a single cylinder engine modified with a diesel head which is then hooked up to a DC motor/generator and battery, to create a prototype micro-biodiesel engine,” says Sam Epstein, Executive Director of Maui Media Lab. Students are learning skills that will help make a greener tomorrow.
Maui Media Lab is excited about the opening of the new “Studio A,” which is slated for early November. It will host a full stage, sponsored by Rizzo Pacific Staging, a gallery, dance floor, movie projection venue and much more.
Their current studios, consisting of two audio and digital recording and two post-production facilities are top of the line. With musical instruments sponsored by Bounty Music and the technology of programs such as Final Cut, ProTools, ProHD and others, Maui Media Lab studios are being used by Maui students, artists and musicians.
They have a resident percussions instructor, Michael Buono, and two resident vocal instructors, Karyn Sarring and Anastasia Gilliam. Maui Media Lab is looking for instructors in strings, horns, wind and motion: yoga and drama. They will be restarting the Maui Youth Symphony soon and invite those interested in participating to call or email for more information.
Maui Media Lab can be called upon for their lighting, home audio, theatre, wireless connection, voice-over IP, and video observation experience. The studios and their location would not be made possible without the partnership with Premiere Mortgage and supporters such as, Jim Sanders Realty, The Shops at Paia Bay, Pacific Information Exchange, and many, many, MANY more. Maui Media Lab is grateful to all those who have shown an interest in their vision and would like to encourage anybody interested in working together to positively impact the future to contact them at (808) 579-9887 phone, or email: susie@mauimedialab.com. The website address is: www.mauimedialab.com.
By Emily Forster
