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Mini Maker Faire, Day 1
Sep. 21st, 2013 03:50 pmI spent today at Toronto Mini Maker Faire, held at Wychwood Barns. There was some incredibly cool stuff on display; largely 3D printers and Arduino, but also robots, glass-blowing, fire, music, and miscellaneous awesomeness.
Sorry for the crappy quality of these photos; I took them with my cell. It wouldn't have done much good to haul my actual camera there, since it was quite crowded and it was already fairly hard to juggle all the stuff I was picking up, plus my umbrella and cane.
Here's a vintage typewriter modified to tweet whatever you type on it.
I re-learned how to solder by making this little guy, called the Weevil Eye. He has a light sensor, so his LED eyes light up when it's dark (or when you create a shadow by waving a hand or other object over the sensor). Not sure what I'm going to do with him other than use him to demonstrate circuitry and soldering to my kids, but I think he'd make a good brooch.
I sat in on a number of interesting talks. I caught most of one by the Toronto Tool Library, which—I am so happy about this—is opening up a makerspace down the street from me. The talk was mostly about post-scarcity economics and politically quite up my alley, so I went up to them and introduced myself afterwards and signed up for their mailing list. The space opens in a few weeks. It'll be great for me because it's close enough that I can easily drop by after school—much more convenient than Site3—but it's also a potential field trip to take my kids on.
This was a talk by Alex Leitch about her flamethrower that shoots rainbow fire. She estimates that this current incarnation of the Rainbow Gun is about 60% to completion. It was a talk that was very relevant to my interests.
This actually wasn't at Maker Faire, but across the street. I think it's an interesting way for a hairdresser to advertise.
I also scored an utterly gorgeous blown glass tentacle necklace, which I'm wearing at the moment. The one obviously non-electronics person there was a woman who makes sea creature glass jewellery with a blowtorch. It was nice stuff but not totally up my alley—lots of hearts and fish. On a lark, I asked her if she made any with tentacles and it turned out that she had a pile of tentacles that for whatever reason she didn't put on display. Because there's no way anyone at a Maker Faire would be interested in tentacles.
I also got filmed for two separate TV shows. So, uh. I might be on TV. Hopefully they'll contact me so I can post it in a locked post and you can share my utter embarrassment.
Anyway, it was a fabulous day. It was one of those crowds where it was cool to strike up a random conversation with anyone (in my case, generally anyone sitting next to me or hanging out at an interesting display) and they would turn out to be completely fascinating. I made a few good contacts and generally came out feeling exhausted by excited. Looking forward very much to tomorrow.
Sorry for the crappy quality of these photos; I took them with my cell. It wouldn't have done much good to haul my actual camera there, since it was quite crowded and it was already fairly hard to juggle all the stuff I was picking up, plus my umbrella and cane.
Here's a vintage typewriter modified to tweet whatever you type on it.
I re-learned how to solder by making this little guy, called the Weevil Eye. He has a light sensor, so his LED eyes light up when it's dark (or when you create a shadow by waving a hand or other object over the sensor). Not sure what I'm going to do with him other than use him to demonstrate circuitry and soldering to my kids, but I think he'd make a good brooch.
I sat in on a number of interesting talks. I caught most of one by the Toronto Tool Library, which—I am so happy about this—is opening up a makerspace down the street from me. The talk was mostly about post-scarcity economics and politically quite up my alley, so I went up to them and introduced myself afterwards and signed up for their mailing list. The space opens in a few weeks. It'll be great for me because it's close enough that I can easily drop by after school—much more convenient than Site3—but it's also a potential field trip to take my kids on.
This was a talk by Alex Leitch about her flamethrower that shoots rainbow fire. She estimates that this current incarnation of the Rainbow Gun is about 60% to completion. It was a talk that was very relevant to my interests.
This actually wasn't at Maker Faire, but across the street. I think it's an interesting way for a hairdresser to advertise.
I also scored an utterly gorgeous blown glass tentacle necklace, which I'm wearing at the moment. The one obviously non-electronics person there was a woman who makes sea creature glass jewellery with a blowtorch. It was nice stuff but not totally up my alley—lots of hearts and fish. On a lark, I asked her if she made any with tentacles and it turned out that she had a pile of tentacles that for whatever reason she didn't put on display. Because there's no way anyone at a Maker Faire would be interested in tentacles.
I also got filmed for two separate TV shows. So, uh. I might be on TV. Hopefully they'll contact me so I can post it in a locked post and you can share my utter embarrassment.
Anyway, it was a fabulous day. It was one of those crowds where it was cool to strike up a random conversation with anyone (in my case, generally anyone sitting next to me or hanging out at an interesting display) and they would turn out to be completely fascinating. I made a few good contacts and generally came out feeling exhausted by excited. Looking forward very much to tomorrow.
