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-Keith Pelczarski
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Maker Faire 2008 recap
A couple weeks ago, Kerah and I took the kids to Maker Faire 2008. The first day we had a play date with another family, and Max and I had such a good time that we had to go back on Sunday. We took a bunch of Maker Faire pictures.
The whole experience was really fun. It was inspiring to see so many people exercising so much creativity. Make Magazine, the hosts of the event, published this great video of some of the most interesting vehicles that were on display:
We really liked all the cool vehicles, but Max and I really liked the robots, especially when they destroyed stuff. On Saturday, we watched an excellent display of destruction from Subjugator and Manipulatrix, and followed it up on Sunday by watching the Combots Cup for a while.
The robots didn't have the mechanical violence market cornered, though. We also saw an amusing display of remote control destruction courtesy of the Western Warship Combat Club. They had a bunch of RC warships armed with CO2 pellet guns which they would shoot at each other whenever they could maneuver around for a broadside shot.
There were also many excellent fire-breathing machines, like the Crucible's fire engine, or some of the entries in power tool drag racing, or the many flaming sculptures on display. But please don't let me give you the idea that the show was all about destruction.
The real spirit of the show was creation, often re-creation using scrap materials. My personal favorites were all the frankenstein bicycles, mostly done by Cyclecide and Wooden Bikes. There are good shots of them in action in the YouTube video above. The show also featured great DIY stuff, like Toolmonger's giant dinosaur, Instructables, and Howtoons.
Other highlights for us included LegoJeep, the Quickup camper, Art Golf, the 15-passenger-powered Busycle, Pleos, Nemo Gould's kinetic sculpture, the Neverwas Haul, Life-Sized Mousetrap, and Dystopic Horizons Realty. Max even got to meet his MythBusting hero Adam Savage. Here's the full lineup of Makers from Maker Faire 2008.
The whole thing inspired me so much that I joined TechShop. I'm looking forward to learning a bunch of new tools and doing some work in metal -- should be fun.
:: Keith 21:34 [link] :: ::