3 Things I Liked At Maker Faire by Josef Ayala

Going to Maker Faire this year made me realize how much I REGRET not going to Maker Faire last year in 2010. I had such a really good time all under the impression that I would look at it all and yawn. I will eat those words now, and most likely be at Maker Faire in 2012!!!!! It was not only great to see how people’s minds work but also how everyone attacked their tasks and executed assembly in a very unique way but also good to see a really nice and well rounded community for this sort of event. It was peculiar, interesting, entertaining and nerdy all rolled into one. It was also quite scary to see 8 year olds speaking to me using terms such as “open-source”. When I was 8, “open-source”  didn’t exist and I wasn’t playing around with sensors (See sling shot photograph from my first post)! The world might just have a bright future after all.

 

That said, here are some of my favorite exhibits from Maker Faire: VIDEOS COMING SOON!!!!

1) GetLoFi – Contact Mics:

These guys were great, I am heavily into anything related to the sound field. Even though, people might have thought that this was a very simplistic setup and effect, I was still greatly surprised by the ingenuity and talent that goes into something like this. After all that they still managed to pull off a very nice aesthetic for these extremely awesome mics. I plan to try to build one for myself in the future. :

The microphones are “piezoelectric” which essentially means is that they respond by in large to pressure. Piezo electricity contains the ability of some materials to produce a voltage when subjected to pressure—to convert vibrations into an electrical signal.

2) Drum Machine/Synth TV Set:

Again, music oriented Arduino projects win me over. I liked this set up because it incorporated what I believe was an Arduino set up to the television set which triggered an Animation on the adjacent television screen. The drum machine had a similar set up which incorporated what I believe was a light sensor which detected the absence of light and triggered different drum sounds based on how you marked up the projector screen disc. It was a fun set up and I got to play Fur Elise and The Entertainer.

 

3) 3-D Printing:

This never ceases to amaze me. It is growing on me more as I am now learning about “parametric design” for products in my Thesis section but overall, it’s nice to see how things are made and processed. Below I believe are examples of algorithmic product development.

 

honorable mentions:

aren’t these helmets cool !?