Road trip! Chicago Northside Mini Maker Faire made their way to Milwaukee Maker Faire this past weekend. And we had tons of fun. The event was located at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in Milwaukee. At the same time, there was Harvest Festival, which made for a very festive environment!
Outside of the Exhibition Hall, there was a wonderful collaboration between Maker Faire and Harvest Festival. It was none other than a pumpkin throwing trebuchet. It had all the glory of a trebuchet with added joy of pumpkins smashing against a target. It was delightful to watch. There were Life Size Mousetrap, and an ironworks demonstrating how to make shields and other metal armor. So cool!
Inside was the joyful buzz of people learning and making. Over at the Build-A-Blinkie table, soldering tables were filled with happy busy people. We made our own Blinkies! We soldered together an atomic pin with blue flashing lights. It was the bees knees. Next time, we’re going to have to build their lighted cube! (Well, if we have a spare 2 + hours.)
We also met a group of makers who were prototyping a video game gym. It was a rather fantastic concept. The screen was hooked up to an exercise chair with pedals and arm poles. On the screen, there was an Asteroid game. To make your little space ship accelerate, you had to move the pedals. If you want to turn around, you had to pull or push the arm poles. Very neat. I can’t wait to see the final product.
We also got to see robots from First Robotics face off! These magnificent machines whirled and twirled across the court attempting to throw balls into one another’s goals. It was really inspiring to see what kids were able to do. I can’t wait to see what they make next!
We also schmoozed with hacker spaces from Wisconsin. We met people from Madison based Sector 67. They were demoing a theremin piano. It was a horizontal theremin with piano keys for reference. Normally, you have to have perfect pitch to play a theremin but this piano key setup allowed regular folks to have a sense of what pitch is being played.
We also got to check out some friends of Northside Maker Faire: Chicago Electronic Distributors. We talked to them about some new and exciting future projects. And they had some neat kits to build!
One really nifty thing was that GE sponsored a contest. Contestants had three hours to assemble a vehicle to navigate an obstacle course without spilling an open container of water. You couldn’t use normal vehicle parts like a wheels, etc. It looked like a great deal of fun. Some folks had projects that would travel by rope; other groups made wheels out of plastic and rubber pieces. Next time, we are totally signing up and competing!
Thanks for a wonderful day, Milwaukee! Can’t wait for next year!
