Posted by admin on June 4th, 2009 in Creativity

When I was little, I used to watch my Dad build things. He was an amateur Ham radio operator and built his own stereo.   Although a doctor by profession, he loved to create and build things and was always tinkering. As a result, I learned to solder and built a tester board from a kit and I also learned to mix mortar when we laid bricks for our new brick fence.  I won’t bore you with all the other  projects  we tackled – it’s enough to know something was going on all the time.

The Fair

That’s probably why I love Maker Faire.  I went last year for the first time and was blown away.  I couldn’t believe I had never been before.  It does appear in Austin now, but when we lived there, it did not.  This year, I was fortunate to be given a press pass and tickets for my family to attend.  The lines are really long to get in, so getting in promptly and seeing as much as possible was a very good thing.  In fact, it was a difficult week-end for us to attend as both kids have finals this week and were studying all week-end.  In fact, my daughter was unable to join us and we were only there for the morning.

I love the creativity and passion the people who demonstrate and show at the Fair.  Everyone has an interest whether it’s “soft goods” like knitting and sewing or the seriously complex world of designing adapted gadgets from re-cycled electronics.  My new favorite this year was “IFixIt”.  I took a video of their representative discussing their website so you could learn about them (see sidebar)  I’ve also listed some of my favorites below so you can check them out.

Steampunk

Last year was my first “encounter” with the Steampunk folks.   They remind me of a Jules Verne movie and are a lot like the people who travel around with Renaissance Fairs; living and breathing another era.   While touring the exhibition hall,my son was interviewed for a documentary being made about the Fair.  They wanted to know his “passion”.  Of course, that would be computers – he built his from parts he ordered online.  But, it wasn’t all electronics.  There were inventors of solar-powered bicycles and a pop-up camper for a regular truck.  There was a device that had 5 guitars attached to the top and when you pedaled, it strummed the guitars making pretty good music.  I just love seeing all the innovation and hope I can go again next year.  If it’s on a good week-end, I’d like to go both days and take advantage of some of the interesting talks that are available all week-end long.

I think one of the pluses of our teen’s use of technology is how much it empowers them to do and learn things on their own.  the IFixIt site is one of those places a teen (or anyone) use to solve their own problems and FIX something.  I like that.

If there is a Maker’s Faire near you, I highly recommend going and taking your teen.  What a great, positive educational yet fun way to use your brain!  And, so many positive role models – from artists to engineers, video game designers, videographers, gadget-makers and t-shirt makers!

Here are some of my favorites this year:

Martin Hsu: This guy is a Disney animator and he was selling t-shirts he did illustrations for.  Very innovative and talented guy.  his t-shirts are available online at: MartinHsu.com

IFixIt: These guys have a great idea; to aggregate on one website the “how-to’s” of fixing Ipods, Macs and various other electronic items.  Their goal is to add things like appliances and anything that someone can “fix”.  Watch my interview for my information.

Sketchup.Google.com:  This is a great application offered free by Google that I think would be great to use in a presentation for school.  I’m sure there are other uses but that one jumped to mind first.

Playcrafter: This is for the younger kids (tweens maybe) – it’s an online video game design website.  It’s free.  Looked fun.

Wikipedia: The Wiki people were there and I had an opportunity to ask about citing Wikipedia for use in research or book reports.  More and more teens are using the computer for background and research.  Although Wikipedia should never be used as the only resource, it’s a great place to start locating OTHER resources.  They mentioned a book that is available that might be useful for those using Wikipedia a lot.  You can find it on Amazon. There was so much information in this booth, I’ll do another post just about that at a later date.