Hackers at Play at Maker Faire 2007 - Races, Battles, and Nerds, oh my
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“We break stuff, then make it into something else,” explained Caroline Miller, one of the fair’s attendees. Take for example the Power Tool Drag Races. One has to wonder if the Skill saw propelled by liquid nitrogen or the Bosch 9-inch angle grinder boasting lawn mower wheels will ever be able to be used again for their original intended purposes. But then, that isn’t the point after all. “The goal is to go fast and hit stuff,” said one race announcer.
The ComBots Cup was held starting on Saturday. This was a $10,000 challenge for 220 pound robots. The winner also took home a three-foot-tall home-made robot trophy. The challenge was expected to be ongoing all day Saturday and a large chunk of Sunday.
Robots were in evidence everywhere, from the crafters building cardboard robot suits to the modified Roombas to robots that fought each other. Survival Research Laboratories, a 28-year-old robotics art group operating out of San Francisco, was on hand. Someone had even built a robot out of dead computer mice. And then of course there was the giant nose-picking hand. Where else would people stand in line to run in a human-sized hamster wheel to power a hand that moves up and down to pick a statue’s nose but at Maker Faire?
One of the cooler stories of the fair was about Nifer Fahrion. She learned how to felt at last year’s Maker Faire. In between last year and this year she started a small business selling her felted creations, which she showed off at this year’s Maker Faire. They included some very cute and silly items, such as Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
But whether it’s relatively high-tech, like the remote-controlled planes and the robots and even the computer scanner turned into a glowing, ultraviolet lamp, or low-tech, like many of the crafted items, the makers of these objects share a certain sensibility. They want to make cool things that stand out as unique expressions in a world increasingly dominated by a chain-store mentality. And they want to share their creations – even down to the instructions for how to make more – with like-minded people. Wired described maker culture as taking the more traditional do-it-yourself mindset and adding “an emphasis on open source and a screw-the-man irreverence borrowed from punk rock.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds like my kind of people.
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