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 cycling madmen of Whiskeydrunk Cycles, part of Fun Bike Unicorn Club, set up their Whiskey Drome at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. In the vide above, Joshua Thwaites and Joey Caster tell us about the inspiration for this barrel-shaped arena while cycling daredevils perform dangerously fun stunts along the perimeter of the drome.
Michael Margolis is the author of Arduino Cookbook, a collection of projects utilizing the physical computing platform of Arduino. He was on hand at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 to discuss Arduino and his book, published by O’Reilly Media.
Tyto Alba is an art car made from the remnants of 25 bicycles, along with an owl figurehead fashioned from leather feathers. Brother John and Sister Sharon combine their skills of mechanical engineering and leather shoemaking to showcase their creation at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011.
Hunter McCurry brought the Pullcordion to Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. This handmade mechanical musical instrument is played by pulling on strings that are attached to pieces of dryer ventilation tubing with harmonica reeds mounted on them.
Joe Sooch designed and built the New Music Box, an automated musical instrument that blends old and new technology that produces percussive music through solenoids and a sequencer. At Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, the Music Box drummed rhythms, noise, and musical notes for passersby.
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Mitch Altman and Bilal Ghalib’s desire to raise money to host a three-day maker/hackerspace at Maker Faire Africa (coming up in Cairo on Oct 6-8). They still need support…
At World Maker Faire, I finally got to see paintable circuits in action. Matt Johnson spoke with me about the conductive paint that people were using and showed me a few projects that demonstrate the possibilities. The business cards they brought were printed with a swath of conductive paint suitable for some home experimenting.
Bare Conductive grew out of the founders’ graduate studies at the Innovation Design Engineering Course at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. The version of their conductive paints they had at Maker Faire is similar to the skin paint featured in a music video of a few years back.
The paints can be used to create traditional circuits, and for signalling with the Arduino. Since the company has just passed its’ regulatory approvals, we can expect to see many new experiments as the community of users grows.
