Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth — a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the maker movement.
Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these people come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.
Explore below to see the best of Maker Faire, and head to makerfaire.com for more information.
The latest print edition of The Economist has an article of makers, MAKE, Maker Faire, and the growing maker movement. It’s so great to see a head/subhead like this in any mainstream magazine, let alone one with such gravitas in the business world: More than just digital quilting — Technology and society: The “maker” movement could change how science is taught and boost innovation. It may even herald a new industrial revolution.
Early on a recent Friday morning, a crane hoisted an old Airstream trailer onto the second floor of a building under construction in the Alphabet City section of Manhattan. The shiny aluminum trailer (circa 1958) is destined to become a recording studio inside of the Lower East Side Girls Club, currently just a concrete shell on Avenue D between 7th and 8th Streets. There was not much clearance to slip the 23-foot long trailer onto the second floor –only 20 inches– so the chilly autumn air was fraught with anxiety as the 2,000 lb. trailer rose off a flatbed truck.
Sterling Johnson has childhood memories of being fascinated by blowing bubbles, even learning how to make them using only soap and his own hands. At Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 he uses a variety of simple devices to create both massive bubbles and swarms of smaller bubbles.
Peter William Wagner bounces across the fairgrounds at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, delighting everyone whose path he crosses. The big purple eccentric-axled bike has two inflated all-terrain wheels that can also function as flotation for the aquatic parts of the annual Kinetic Grand Championship in and around Arcada, California, where this “whim-cycle” has appeared for the last six years. Even Peter’s baby granddaughter enjoys the ride.
Kyle Lawson and James Peyer discuss their innovative strategy to get biotechnology into schools and hackerspaces. Their company otyp was formed with the purpose of making equipment and information accessible to anyone who wants to get started with genetic research and experiments.
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Opabinia Regalis was a Precambrian creature that has been reborn as a a fire spewing art bike. Crafted by Kurt Pires, this extinct animal on wheels makes the rounds at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 while being used as a teaching tool for fossil history. http://www.bobbiepires.com/opa/ http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/5172
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Josh Billions demonstrates the Mapbag at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. It is a bicycle messenger bag with a ring of vibrating motors sewn into its strap, whose positions correspond to compass points. This soft circuit project uses a Lilypad in conjunction with the gps feature in an Iphone, allowing the user to set a destination and be given constant haptic feedback through the fabric in order to stay on course and in the right direction. This acts as an exploratory wayfinding tool – a fun and useful alternative to a standard turn-by-turn map. http://www.joshbillions.org/ http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/6141
