One Month Left: Maker Previews
It’s one month away! We’re finalizing our list of Makers and wanted to share a few of the things we’ll have for you to explore on the 28th.
Rube Goldberg Machines: Build a crazy contraption to send a marble on a journey, through ramps and corners, tubes, tracks and bumpers, all the way to the bottom of the maze.
Kids Creative Reuse: Creative reuse bringing together critical thinking, arts and Good Garbage!
Make Felt with the Speed Museum: Stop, get your hands wet, and make felt into balls, mini-sculptures, or whatever your brain can invent.
Guerrilla Putt-Putt: Play a game of pop-up mini-golf, or help build a new hole
Learn to Solder: Got inspired by one of the projects? Learn to solder and make your very own keepsake flashing LED pin.
L.E.A.P. – Taking Robotics to the Realm of the Impossible!: The Lightweight Electronic Aeronautical Project’s goal is to create the first heavier-than-air controlled flying craft out of purely LEGO Mindstorm robotics pieces. It has been called impossible by many!
We’ll be previewing more in the month between now and the Faire so check back.
Learn about 3D Printing at the Louisville Mini Maker Faire
3D Printing, also known as “additive manufacturing”, has been called a breakthrough technology. It’s been called “the next industrial revolution“. And we’re going to have a bunch of it at the Louisville Mini Maker Faire.
In 3D printing, a machine squirts a thin layer of material onto the plate. Then another, of a slightly different shape. Then another. Building these up you can feed digital files into the printer and have them come out in 3D!
Below, check out the in-process items being printed onto the gold plate.
What’s great about this is that increasingly, you can make things to order. Measure your finger, plug the measurements into a program, and pop out a ring that fits you exactly. Print replacement parts for things you’ve bought. Researchers in Louisville are already working on printing heart tissue onto a frame – meaning someday you could print a new heart that fits only you.
Many companies manufacture these printers and we will have a great selection at the Maker Faire showing off what they can do.
Ingenuity, Engines, and Making
A great article from The Atlantic about the history of the word “engine”. It actually goes back to the 14th century (the medieval usage example they cite is of textile Makers using wool and linen) and is related to the same root as “ingenious”. Just goes to show that ingenious, creative Makers have been around for a long time.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/engine-the-history-of-a-concept-from-14th-century-poetry-to-google/278611/
Maker Spotlight: “The Device”
Newton’s Attic is a Lexington-based outfit that provides science and engineering education and summer camps. Among many other accomplishments, founder Bill Cloyd has made this masterpiece, which is titled simply “The Device”.
Assuming we can get it here, we’re planning to put it smack in the middle of Market Street and let everyone ride it.
Preview: Experiments in Water Filtration
The Louisville Water Company will be joining us on Sept. 28th at the Maker Faire for interactive “Experiments in Water Filtration” sessions. Learn about LWC’s rich history and innovations in making the “Best Tasting Tap Water in America”. Then, try your hand at making a water filter. Fun for all ages! Sessions will begin at the top of each hour, starting at noon with the last session ending at 6pm.
Thanks to the Louisville Water Company, there will also be a “Louisville’s Pure Tap” booth on Market Street pouring free water all day. Bring your own water bottle or buy one of LWC’s BPA-free bottles, and stay hydrated!
Maker Spotlight: Propane Tank Submarine
We just heard about this father/son duo in McLean County who built a functional submarine out of a propane tank. WANT!
We’ve invited them to show it off at MakerFaireLou and hope they’ll come!
Event Preview: Power Tool Drag Racing
We’re finalizing the details but are working to bring Power Tool Drag Racing to MakerFaireLou on September 28th! If you’re unfamiliar with it, this event is a bracket-style competition where power tools such as circular saws, belt sanders, or weed whackers race against each other until one is crowned champion. Other prizes are given out for ‘most creative’ and ‘crowd favorite’, and depending on judge discretion, ‘ugliest’ or ‘best wreck’.
This year Louisville will be the first leg of a ‘Triple Crown’ of tool racing, with other legs in Columbus and Cincinnati. Here’s a preview of what to expect:
Why not build your own? Track and racer specs are available at the Ohio Tool Racing site.
Rube Goldberg, or, Incredible Machines
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who came up with incredibly complicated machines for the most mundane of tasks. (You can get a sense of them from this gallery of his work.) He never built his machines, but others have certainly taken them as inspiration.
The Rube Goldberg competition is a national contest for high-school teams who construct a contraption to perform a simple task (put a stamp on an envelope, hammer a nail, put toothpaste on a toothbrush) in at least 20 steps of Rube Goldberg insanity. This year 183 teams competed!
Here are a few others we’ve seen and loved.
OK Go’s video for “This Too Shall Pass”
Life-Sized Mousetrap
How to Share a Coke
Have more examples? Share them in the comments, or catch us on @makerfairelou.
Maker Story: 737 Flight Simulator Bedroom
From France, here’s a dedicated father who built a working 737 flight simulator cockpit for his kids’ bedroom. And on a waiter’s salary to boot!
Maker Story: Makey Makey
Ever wanted to play a banana piano? Or play Mario with a Play-doh controller?
Some cool guys at the Media Lab at MIT came up with Makey Makey, a kit that allows you to use pretty much anything as a keyboard or joystick. Check it out below, and then imagine your own inventions.
You can now buy one of these for your own creative purposes at www.makeymakey.com, thanks to crowdsourced funds raised through Kickstarter.