…code, cg, electronics, 3d printing…

This weekend my family and I attended our second Maker Fair, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds.  As usual, it was an amazing time.
www.makerfair.com
www.makezine.com

It was very, very packed.  That was the only bothersome part.  They either need to sell fewer tickets, or move it to a larger location.  But having it 2 miles from my house can’t be beat 😉

While I was there, I picked up a couple projects to work on:

• Solarbotics “SolarSpeeder 2” kit.  I’ve made their HexPummer and Symet in the past, which were fun solar projects to work on.
• Arudino Duemilanove :  I really have no idea what I’m going to do with this yet, but since it uses Processing PDE (Processing Development Environment) and the Wiring programming language (which is based on Processing), I’m looking forward to seeing how my Processing skills will port over.

Here’s a list of information I picked up, that I personally thought was interesting (in no particular order):

• Gyrobike : Put a gyroscope in the front tire of a kids bike, helps keep them up without training wheels.
• Elemental Chemistry Card Game : Anything that makes learning fun is good.
• High Tek Bikes : Makers of electric bicycles.
• Light Doodles : Drawing in the dark with LEDs
• Bushwaffle : Big pink starfish things you can bounce on, make into chairs, or other comfy things.
• Makerbot : 3d printing in your living room.
• MonkeyElectric : POV (persistence of vision) led light kits for bicycle wheels.
• Kinetic Steam Works : They had a full size steam-tractor running gearworks.  Big, powerful, awesome.
• Grid Beam : Construction materials to build all sorts of different things.
• The Crucible : A school that teaches metalworking and industrial arts, and drives a firetruck that blows fireballs.  Sweet.

Overall it was a great time of course.  There was so much more than the few things I listed above, from the art instilations, to the music, to the presentations, to the off the wall costumes.  We watched R\C tanks battle, took a ride in the Lunapillar, waslked through a self-powered 3 story victorian house, built Lego’s they let you take home, watched sculptures breath fireballs, lasers etch things, 10′ tesla coils light up, bounced on starfish shaped inflatables, saw a life-sided Mouse Trap game, a 3d color printer, ate over priced food, and enjoyed every minute of it.