Collection by Miyoko Ohtake
Maker Faire 2011
This weekend, Maker Faire—dubbed "the world's largest DIY festival"—took over the San Mateo County Event Center for its two-day do-it-yourself, show-and-tell extravaganza. There were hundreds of makers proudly parading their homemade and home-built wares to the estimated 80,000 people in attendance. Click through our slideshow for some of our favorite finds at the festival.
The Fiesta Hall's main attraction was the Tesla Stage. Here, Austin-based group ArcAttack! set up its Tesla coils and Faraday cage. The coils create electricity, which become electrical arcs, which look like lightning bolts. Where the arcs connect to the Faraday cage and panels determines the sound they make. ArcAttack! created its own DJ setup to play songs by adjusting the voltage of the arcs so that they produce tones in certain patterns (like in the end of the Nicolas Cage flick The Sorcerer's Apprentice). It was pretty awesome to see and hear.
MakerBots was also exhibiting in the Fiesta Hall, with three Thing-O-Matics on display. The rapid-prototyping machines are robots that melt plastic and reform it into small items like plastic gears of small toys. Machines such as these used to cost tens of thousands of dollars, but now companies like MakerBot have brought the price down to just over $1,000.
Though the robot here is physically painting this piece of art, its motions were controlled by festival attendees. The Move.Me software tool lets people use a PlayStation Move game motion controller to control the robot's movements. It's like robotic surgery just on a far more basic level and using video game equipment.
Before calling it a day, we watched EepyBird's Coke and Mentos geyser show. The duo of viral video fame put on a Bellagio-fountain-like display and also explained the mechanics behind the reactions.
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