World Maker Faire photos and take aways

First, thanks to those who offered advice on Maker Faire in this blog’s post on Friday. As I stated, this was the first Maker Faire I attended and I didn’t know what to expect. Dale Dougherty, a Maker Faire moderator and of Make magazine, summed up what I was thinking in my planning during a session on bringing more kids into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). He was discussing why kids would come to Maker Faire and half joking said “What’s Maker Faire? I don’t know but it’s cool. Let’s go!” He continued to point out that it’s Maker “Faire,” not Maker Show or Maker Conference — a faire like a carnival full of exhibits, just like the World’s Fair was back in 1964.

And basically, from this first-time Maker Faire attendees view, that’s what it seemed to be, this indefinable splurge of STEM-fueled fun and invention, this sort of organized chaos, and organized chaos, as many engineers will tell you, can bring about some of the best designs, partnerships, and ideas.

STEM was clearly a big part of Maker Faire. There was much more than I expected geared toward kids. Cognizant hosted a full zone just for young makers and this was one of the most crowded places at Maker Faire. A huge draw for the kids were these trash bins full of old electronics.

Kids were encouraged to tear into them with random tools. I have to admit I cringed when the little girl in gray went after, well, everything she could get her hands on with those pliers but I had attended the Projects and Geek Parenting presentation earlier in the day in which Geek Dad’s David Giancaspro mentioned, just briefly, how as parents we sometimes tend to shield our kids, not allowing them to tinker in fear of them getting hurt. I figured since her mom wasn’t worried, I’d just take my picture and leave it at that.

Here’s another one of the kids tearing down old electronics. When I asked the kid in the Yankees hat if he was enjoying the show, without looking up he replied, “too busy to talk, come back later.” The kid was too excited about what he was doing to chat. That was my favorite quote of the day.

Some kids also got to put together “LED art kits”…

And LEDs were also employed in “Happy City,” a model town the kids built, complete with a windmill for solar energy and “Nova’s Love Hut” … not sure what the kids meant when they built that one, let’s hope it was meant to be a house of hugs …

Here’s one little girl learning about rocket launching. The kids made rockets out of straws, putty, and construction paper then launched them with forced air. She and her sister loved this.

There were several makers talking reuse at the faire, as well, and lots of folks giving away what they couldn’t fix themselves.

And others, like Scraptacular, finding new uses for discarded items.

Robotics were prevalent (even as a newbie, I expected that). These MIDI controlled musical robots gathered a crowd.

Microsoft also showed off some robots based on its Robotics Developer Studio 4 (RDS4) beta and kick started its Robotics@Home competition.

And some makers took apart the Tickle Me Elmo toys, striping them down to their shells and exposing the electronics guts. Once exposed, the makers were reprogramming them to do exactly what they wanted and in a coordinated fashion, advertising doing so as a way to create one’s own small army of robots.

And here’s one maker’s car that employed mechanical fish and lobsters that sang and shifted to “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s. You can’t see it in the photo but there’s a Linux fish next to the rear license plate.

Alternative energy made its appearance. Check out this sewing machine powered by solar. When the clouds come out, the bike can power the machine. Each one of those patches were selling for at least $20.

General Electric boasted its Carousolar solar-powered carousel near the Arduino Pavilion. The all-white carousel is powered by GE solar panels and lit up by TETRA Contour LED lights.

The Arduino tent was mobbed but I was too engrossed in talking to DIYers there to take photos. I’ll be catching up with Arduino later this week, so look for more on them soon.

And filled under wicked cool was GonKiRin, which means “Light Dragon” in Mandarin. Constructed using metal and LED fixtures and built onto the frame of a 1963 Dodge W-300 Power Dump Truck with a 318 engine, GonKiRin is 69 feet long, 22 feet tall, and weighs 8 tons. GonKiRin is equipped with almost 2,500 feet of linear RGB LED lighting fixtures and a massive flamethrower in its mouth, creating one heck of a show. The dragon also has a built-in second story DJ booth, which will most likely be put to use when GonKiRin takes his place in the NYC Halloween parade in a few weeks.

Also under wicked cool, file the Life Size Mousetrap. Some DIYers created a spectacle based on the board game including the steps, bath tub, and almost all the other Mousetrap parts used with one notable exception: It did not feature a dropping cage to catch the mouse. Instead of the cage, a massive weight was dropped on to a car. I have some video but am having trouble uploading it so for now this photo will have to do.

And unfortunately I missed ArckAttack and their Tesla coils (sorry, Andy T) but you can watch video of their other shows here.

Thanks to all those who helped plan this Maker Faire. Looking forward to the next one.

Share your thoughts on Maker Faire below.