This year at Maker Faire, kids had an opportunity to take part in the Mega Model Build at the MakerKids tent. The Mega Model Build allowed kids to build their own miniature city using items such as paper towel rolls, straws, toys, shells, craft items, and basically anything else you can imagine!
The finished models look great and are now on display on the 2nd floor of the Austin Children’s Museum! You will have to come see these for yourself because photos don’t do these awesome models justice!
One of my favorite things to see at Maker Faire this year was the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir is an art car that has over 250 lobsters and fish attached to it! Using computers, creators Richard Carter and John Schroeter figured out how to program these sea creatures to sing and move to various songs. One of the lobsters is even the orchestral conductor!
The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir was so entertaining and kept all the viewers of the art car laughing! Pictures do not do this car justice- you have to hear it to get the full effect, so here is a video clip of the art car at Austin’s Maker Faire. The video gets really good starting at about 40 seconds:
MAKE Magazine posted a video last week showing the highlights from Maker Faire 2008 in Austin. To see footage of the Combat Robots, art cars, and more, watch the video here! There is even a clip of the Austin Children’s Museum’s Mega Model Build!
One of my favorite things about Maker Faire this year was seeing so many creative inventions that blended science and art together. Whether it was watching SanDraw, a computer operated machine that drew designs in sand, or watching RoboSpinArt, a modern day joystick version of the 1960′s and 1970′s version of Spin Art, there was so much to see and do!
One invention that used both science and the arts was Airheads Air Drums. Airheads placed two sensor sticks about two feet apart. Then, kids and adults are able to ”play the air” beneath the sensor sticks and hear the sound of drums or other instruments playing! How cool is that? Here is a video I took of the Air Drums:
Another invention that I loved was Cyclecide‘s Melody Maker. The Melody Maker allowed people to play music on electric guitars by simply riding a bicycle! I wasn’t able to get my own video of this fun creation, but I found another video that shows what it did:
As promised, here is the video of the first minute of Eepybird‘s Diet Coke and Mentos Fountains at Maker Faire! We were all so excited to see the fountains and Fritz and Stephen’s performance was so entertaining and well done! Great job Eepybird!
If you want to see a video that shows a full length version of one of their shows go here!
Well, Maker Faire has just wrapped up in Austin for the year, and I’m already pumped about going back to Maker Faire next year! The highlight of today was definitely getting to see EepyBird‘s Diet Coke and Mentos Fountains. EepyBird used 104 bottles of Diet Coke and over 600 Mentos to create amazing fountains of soda! The Diet Coke shot up so high in the air that some of us got sprayed! Here are a few photos from the show. Keep an eye out for video footage of this event on the Austin Children’s Museum blog later this week:
Fritz and Stephen got the audience excited about the Diet Coke and Mentos Fountains and explained the science behind their show.
Amazing carbonated fountains!
Someone from the Science Channel wanted to see what would happen if he tried drinking out of a Diet Coke bottle while it was spraying soda everywhere. Needless to say, he was covered in the beverage!
Thank you to everyone- volunteers, scientists, artists, visitors, and of course, Make Magazine, who helped to make Maker Faire a great experience for the whole family!
At Maker Faire there are tons of things for the whole family to see! I am getting a chance to explore Maker Faire today and I have already seen Art Cars, kids and adults hula-hooping, giant robots, an 80-foot-long rattlesnake bicycle, the life size Mouse Trap, and Combat Robots… I could go on and on! I’m excited to find out what else Maker Faire has in store for Austin!
It’s the afternoon of the first day of Maker Faire and already it has been full of exciting events! At the tent for the Austin Children’s Museum, kids of all ages have been finding fun activities to do like the Mega Model Build! The Mega Model Build allows kids to create their own buildings and towns together using creative materials like cardboard tubes and toys. The finished creation will be on display at the museum! Look at what kids have built so far:
Another exciting part of the museum’s tent has been the Maker Kid displays! Kids came up with their own inventions and got to present them to everyone at Maker Faire. It was amazing to see what they thought up- they all did a great job!
Brothers, Alex and Isaac, figured out a way to hack their Wii remotes so that the “A” buttons glow:
Griffin made a Paper Stacker that stacks and moves paper and homework! He also brought a fun invention that sucked up cotton balls and shot them out again:
Alexander showed us how to make elaborate ships out of paper:
Ivan made his own Mega Model, complete with electronic parts, like a working train:
Alex made a remote controlled, moving cooler called “Ice Cool”:
More exciting Maker Faire news is to come!
Check out all the cool stuff in our Maker Kids area at this year’s Maker Faire!
Parachute Launch- Design and build a penny parachute! Launch your two cents from the Parachute Launcher and see how safely it returns to the ground.
Mega Model Build- Calling all artists, engineers and junk collectors! Join the ACM staff and Architect Artist Scott Specht and build a Mega Model City on-site at Maker Faire.
Woodworking- ACM staff and volunteers will provide guidance and assistance in a free form woodworking workshop. We’ll be designing, building and decorating with wood, paint and tools.
Celebrate National Chemistry Week- Members and volunteers of the American Chemical Society will be celebrating National Chemistry Week with hands-on chemistry experiments for the entire family. (Saturday Only)
FLL Show and Tell- First Lego League will be showing off the robots they’ve built and presenting their research on “Climate Connections”
Rubber-band and Mouse Trap Cars- Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering will join ACM to host a hands-on activity that has more potential energy that we can harness!
MakerKids Showcase- Kids Makers from Austin will be showcasing their inventions and creations. From finely detailed paper ships to ICE COOL the remote controlled cooler, we’ve even got an invention designed to make homework more fun! (Saturday only)
Kite Making- Make, test fly and refine your kite all on site. Experts from the Exchange Club of Austin, hosts of the annual Zilker Kite Festival, will be on hand all weekend to help you perfect your wind powered flyer.
Mark your calenders- On October 18th and 19th Austin’s 2nd Annual Maker Faire will be at the Travis County Event Center and Fairground! What is Maker Faire though? Maker Faire is a family-friendly event that celebrates creativity. The two-day event features people of all ages and from all locations who love to create Do-It-Yourself activities and other wonderful inventions. In the next couple weeks, the Austin Children’s Museum will be getting you pumped up for this exciting event! View this video to see some of the exciting things that went on at last year’s Maker Faire:
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