Maker Fiare 2010

The Maker Faire is mostly like what it sounds like. It is a fair where the main attraction is learning how to make things, to look at invention and re-use and odd DIY stuff. It was thoroughly overwhelming and I find now that I'm here uploading that I might have taken all of ten photos throughout the day.

At the beginning of the day we saw this guy demonstrating the theramin... for those who don't know this is the instrument you hear in those 1950's Sci-Fi movies. It's completely electronic and is played somewhat like an air guitar.

I tried to draw a tree with light;


I think a little practice would help... but playing with light exposure photography is easily something I could waste a lot of time with.

The place was covered with all sorts of kenetic scupltures made with re-used items... something I didn't take a photo of that I loved was the display of old computers turned into musical instruments including a game console guitar and mouse maracas...

... interactive sculptures... (better photos HERE)
There was a pond for fighting model ships. There is a club thatmakes 1/44th scale WWII ships that have battles every hour with real ballistics. I imagine it would have been more exciting to be participating rather than just watching from behind this rather wobbly plastic sheeting. We did have to wear protective goggles and sign waivers that said we wouldn't sue for injury.
There was a shipping crate that had been hollowed out and filled with all of this metal sculpture made with reused pieces. I thought my Mom would really have liked this part because my Granddad was a creative welder who would have done things like this...

Steampunks ruled this festival. They had a steampunk villiage where they had skits about their strange Victorianesque "robots" and sold their wares. There were people dressed in steampunk clothes all over the festival and it made me a little sad for the SCA folks who were in rather shabby garb and weren't getting much attention for their fencing at the far end of the festival.
The Steampunks did have some neat inventions... yet again I thought I had taken all sorts of photos of them but in reality I just thought about it and was too overwhealmed by the scale of the festival and number of people to really focus long enough to pull out my camera. Anyway, here is their "steam" powered bike (actaully it runs on gas but that's not nearly as cool).
There were several buildings full of activities and trade show type promotions. In one booth I learned how to solder open pin circuit boards... I made a mini theramin. This booth made me laugh like crazy... "Paper airplanes made easy" Really? Because they're so hard? Wow.
This shot from inside one of the tents was of the ping pong ball LED mobius thingie... it looses a good deal in translation. It strobes through several sets of sequential LEDs and looks like some giant bio-luminescent creature.
Fire sculpture;
At the end one of my favorite new bands(Ok Go) played (separate post to follow) with fishbowls on their heads...
It's hard to sum it all up because it was so overwhelming. There were too many people. There were many vendors who didn't actually have any information or activity beyond telling you to go to their website... there were more vendors than I expected selling DIY kits for more than I thought they were worth. There were also interesting lectures and resources that I had never heard of. There was a Tesla coil band (separate post to follow) that played music amplified through 20' tall tesla coils. The next time I go I think I may take more time quietly listening to NASA scientists in the lecture hall and not trying to see everything there is to see.