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.
I just got back from New York City where Eric Stackpole and I spent the weekend exhibiting and talking about OpenROV at the Open Hardware Summit and World Maker Faire. Although it wasn’t quite as big as Maker Faire Bay Area, it was an unbelievable gathering of makers and creators of all shapes and sizes. On a scale of 1 to Awesome, it was a perfect score.
The Atlanta Mini Maker Faire was held on September 10, 2011 at the Georgia Tech campus — nice (but hot) weather, easy parking, and over 60 exhibitors allowed visitors plenty of time to stop, look, chat, and even make some purchases. I asked the event’s coordinator, Eric Weinhoffer, if he could provide some more details about the event, as well as attendance figures and any lessons learned that might help other Mini Maker Faire coordinators in the future.
I was psyched to finally get a chance to meet RobotGrrl at World Maker Faire. In this video from her table, she shows Chris Connor three of the bots she’s designed. I especially love that she’s already made use of the Redpark Cable for connecting Arduino with iOS via an iPad.
Among other whimsical items, Xylocopa Design fabricates unique musical instruments, such as this 5 stringed boxy fiddle. These creations were born from Michele’s practice in musical instrument repair and grew into the design of completely new instruments that she demonstrated for delighted visitors at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011.
Maker Faire New York is being featured on The Engadget Show tonight at 6pm ET. Becky and I will also be in studio talking about Make: Live and our favorite DIY projects. Not only that, but there will also be appearances by Jonathan Coulton, Makerbot’s Turtle Shell Racers, and Keepon, our favorite dancing robot. Watch the stream on their show page and we’ll post the archive as soon as it’s ready.
The Young Makers Program at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 produced two interesting projects by Alex Jacobson, John Boyer, and Sam Frank. Saphira is an animatronic fire-breathing dragon, and Fire Jam is a visualization device for the Rock Band video game that selectively shoots five jets of flame that correspond to the buttons on the guitar controller.
The latest episode of MakerBot TV is from this weekend’s Faire. As you might image, the focus in on the amazing 3D Village that we had set up there, and MakerBot’s presence at the event. They cover Spazzi, Keepon, and BreBot, and interview MakerBot/3D printing enthusiasts Tristan Juan, Forest Crossman, Luis Rodriguez, and Timmy Chao Li.
