Maker Faire - knit drum

So, in hindsight, I guess I didn't blog much about my experience at the maker faire this year.
So today, in my google alerts, I found my way to this blog, and was glad to see one of the persons that I had forgotten about - and he was one of my favorite things there, for several reasons.
One, it was just a mental freeze when you first see what he's doing. Nothing fancy, just druming while knitting. But then your brain trys to comprehend this, and it just does not compute. Why? Then it hits you... it's art. It doesn't have to fit into a neat little box with the label "because..."
The other reason this particular maker amused me... He did NOT look like he was having fun. Not once did I see him smile, or even interact with the crowd. I passed him several times during the day, and at all times there was always a small crowd around him, with the same smiles on their faces, yet he was off in his own little word, just drummin' and knittin'.
lastly, as far as I could tell, he had not one iota of rhythm. Unless he was on some improvisational jazz level that was beyond me, I could detect no rhythm or beat. Again, this was my brain trying to figure it all out, and looking for some sort of "reason" for it.
So thank you Corey Fogel, for throwing that monkey wrench into my neuro pathways. I just had to smile again, when I saw the above video which reminded me of the above thoughts.

Maker Faire

Well, now that it's here, I am kinda sad that I didn't make plans to be there. Oh well, I saved a lot of money by not going I guess. But if you are in the area of Austin Texas, I'd highly recommend that you check out the Maker Faire this weekend! Sponsored by Make Magazine. I see that they are bringing in some of the same groups that were at the San Mateo, CA maker faire back in the spring, which is cool. The group "cyclecide" will be there with their antics. But most of all, it's just neat to see all of these creative people gathered in on spot. I look forward to reading about the event afterwards to see what new things I missed. I have to wonder too how much different the "vibe" would be from CA compared to TX. From what I hear Austin is a pretty cool place! :) Oh well, maybe next year.

Tech Tags: makezine makerfaire make diy fun

Maker Faire Kid Beyond

Well, the above video, believe it or not, was one of the highlights for me at the maker faire this year. I know, with all those gadgets, inventions, robots, etc... This guy making noises into a microphone was one of the highlights. I've heard beatboxing on TV before, and on the internet, and was impressed, but always thought it a bit silly. But having seen this guy (who calls himself "Kid Beyond") was incredible. To hear those beats and rhythms coming out of his mouth was hard to believe. One of the things that made his performance entertaining was that at one point he asked for a volunteer from the audience. The volunteer he picked was a little blond hair 5 year old boy. Kid Beyond asked the kid to introduce himself to the crowd because he couldn't pronounce his name (sounded Swedish), the kid took the microphone, faced the crowd with no fear and spoke his name :) Then Kid asked Bjorn (making that up) to make the strangest noise he could, so the kid says "Bah" (like a sheep). After a few more times of making the noise, Kid then attempts to lay down a beat while using Bjorn's sound. It was both cute and funny, Bjorn was always about a half-step behind Kid :)
I urge you to go check out Kid Beyond's website here to hear more of his beats.

Tech Tags: makerfaire makezine human+beatbox beatbox kid+beyond

Maker Faire Tesla

So this video may not do justice (I guess that's a given when it's taken on a small camera not made for video). But it was pretty cool to witness this. To give you a rough idea, the loud (may not be loud on your computer, but it was in person) buzzing you hear that sounds like a giant mosquito is the tesla coils. The coils had to be close to 12 feet tall and bout 24 feet apart.
To learn more about Tesla Coils, here's the wikipedia article. In a nutshell it's a resonant transformer, named after Nikola Tesla (Who I think was a genius, who got the wrong end of the stick). These coils generate man made "lightning".

Tech Tags: makerfaire makezine tesla tesla+coil lightning

Maker Faire 07 POV

A small video demonstrating what a "persistence of vision" device can do. The globe is nothing but a straight line of LED lights spinning at a high speed. Then by blinking in a predescribed pattern, they form what looks like a 3 dimensional globe.

maker+faire makerfaire POV LED

Maker Faire combots video

So, not too long ago, I shot a small low res video via my camera for the art buggy derby that I was a part of. I was able to shoot about 4 more small video's while at the Maker Faire. I'm just now getting around to uploading them to my youtube account.
This first one is of our first "combot" competition. The silver robot is a half of a beer keg. I was amazed that the smaller looking black robot was able to shred the keg into oblivion. The smaller black robot had like a lawn mower blade on top that spun at a high speed. The video doesn't do this justice but at least you can get an idea.
I just tried to find a link for the combots and got a bit confused... I think I got it now... Combots is really just a part of a much larger robot competition called RoboGames (formerly RobOlympics). Their website doesn't appear to be updated to include the maker faire for some reason.

Tech Tags: maker+faire makerfaire robogames combots robots