DIY drones are the rage! Chris flew a quadcopter off the stage, and entertained droves of questions from how much weight the copters can carry, to FAA regulations, and announced that they would have a new ARM-based APM (Ardu Pilot Mega) by Maker Faire New York.
Posted by Sabrina Merlo | Sunday May 20th, 2012 1:38 PM
Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments
Last year’s beautiful Makey Awards, designed by MakerBot artist-in-residence Jonathan Monaghan
We are thrilled to announce the 2nd Annual MAKE Magazine Industry Maker Awards (aka the “Makeys”)
Over the next 16 weeks, leading up to swanky award ceremonies at Maker Faire New York 2012 (Sept 28, 29), we’ll be profiling, here on MAKE, 12 companies that have shown outstanding support for independent maker/hacker culture over the past year. Four companies/products will be nominated in four categories, and a public poll will determine one winner in each category.
In 2011, we gave 3D-printed Makey statues to the follow recipients:
Microsoft Kinect – Most Hackable Gadget
PanaVise – Most Repair Friendly
Parallax, Inc. – Best Education/Outreach program
Lego – Best Product Documentation
As part of the program, a “Maker Hero” award will also be presented to an individual in the DIY/DIWO community who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of maker-related education and/or open access to technology. The first award was presented last year to Mitch Altman, for his tireless work in building collaborative “hackerspaces” around the world and in teaching people the joys of hobby electronics and collaborative technologies.
The Makeys are being announced today at Maker Faire Bay Area. As this movement grows, mainstream companies are starting to take makers more seriously as a market segment. MAKE hopes that profiling and celebrating companies that are “getting it,” and giving four of them awards of appreciation, will help fuel their adoption of more open, accessible, user-friendly, and modifiable products.
Stay tuned for the announcement of the first 2012 Makey nominee, Monday, May 28, here on makezine.com. And you can nominate companies and track The Makeys process leading up to Maker Faire New York on The Makeys landing page. Feel free to also nominate companies and worthy maker heroes in the comments below.
After winning last year’s Most Repair Friendly category, for their indispensable electronics vises/circuit board holders, PanaVise added a Makeys “seal of approval” to their product boxes. SO cool!
Last year’s Makey award was designed by MakerBot artist-in-residence Jonathan Monaghan. We want to render the award in a different maker-friendly medium every year. We already have a good idea of what we’d like to do, but we’d love to take suggestions, too. What form would you like to see a Makey take?
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Sunday May 20th, 2012 12:31 PM
Categories: Announcements, Maker Faire | No Comments
Maker Faire Bay Area opened Saturday with an excited rush of the gates. Here are some of the favorite things I saw from the robotic orchestra to Christian Ristow’s metal face and the lock picking workshop organized by Christina Pei. There’s a solar oven popping popcorn and a village made from masking tape with a colorful backdrop of coat hangers. It was an amazing day.
Posted by Dale Dougherty | Sunday May 20th, 2012 7:13 AM
Categories: Maker Faire | 2 Comments
Jasper Hugunin has always wanted to fly, and today on the Innovation Stage he got a shot courtesy of Aero’s flight simulator rig. The wings leverage Wiimotes to give the user a pretty awesome virtual experience of how an albatross gets around.
Aero will be going from 10-10:45 on the Innovation Stage, so get here early tomorrow and check it out.
Posted by Sabrina Merlo | Saturday May 19th, 2012 7:40 PM
Categories: Maker Faire, Uncategorized | No Comments
If you’re walking around Maker Faire you may see a woman skating around with a strange looking instrument. That’s maker extraordinaire Jeri Ellsworth with her bass guitar made out of a Commodore 64. And did I mention she’s playing it while on roller skates? That’s talent!
Posted by Blake Maloof | Saturday May 19th, 2012 5:14 PM
Categories: Maker Faire | 6 Comments
Earlier today Gareth had the idea that we should run an image gallery of the great clothes worn by people who come to Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 (taking place now). So Gar and I went out and snapped some photos of folks wearing interesting outfits. We’ll post another gallery later, because there are so many great outfits here at the Faire!
See the Maker Faire Fashion Photo Gallery
Posted by Mark Frauenfelder | Saturday May 19th, 2012 10:30 AM
Categories: Maker Faire, Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Mike Hatalski will be exhibiting his “ORD-ish Bot” 3D Printer at the Maker Faire this weekend. Mike describes how he got into printer building:
I was about to start ordering the parts for a MendelMax build when I saw a posting by Bard Dring about a prototype printer he built using MakerSlide. I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on some MakerSlide and build my own ORD Bot. Technically it’s an ORD-ish bot because I sourced/machined the parts/kit myself. Bart later sold an ORD bot kit through his Makerslide store, and now through Inventables.
Posted by Shawn Wallace | Friday May 18th, 2012 9:30 PM
Categories: 3D Printing, Desktop Manufacturing, Maker Faire | 6 Comments
Rob Faludi, author of Building Wireless Sensor Networks, is bringing some very cool bots to Digi’s Maker Faire Bay Area Booth:
Say hello to Troy and Abed! They’re Digi International’s brand-new XBee-enabled SumoBots and they’re ready to begin training for their debut at Bay Area Maker Faire 2012. They’ll be battling it out in the Digi booth May 19th and 20th, so prepare yourself for a wireless robotic sumo showdown!
Posted by Brian Jepson | Friday May 18th, 2012 7:30 PM
Categories: Electronics, Maker Faire, Wireless | 1 Comment
As part of their sponsorship of Maker Faire, Chevy offered to loan us a Volt for a week leading up to the Faire. When I heard about this, I jumped at the opportunity to review it. So, here’s the first MAKE car review.
Chevy doesn’t bill the Volt as a hybrid, but rather, an “extended-range electric vehicle” or E-REV. What this means is that you can plug in the car, and 4–8 hours later, you have around 35 miles of range strictly on battery power. This is great range, as most commutes are typically less then 35 miles. The car will charge on 110 or 220 volts. A lot of homes have 220 in the garage for a dryer, or a fuse box nearby where you could bring a 220-volt line over near your car. If this is the case, the charge time cuts in half, and you can go from a completely empty to a full charge in about 3–4 hours. At work, as an example where you might not have the liberty of running a 220-volt line to your parking space, you can charge over 110 with a normal outlet.
Posted by Jake Spurlock | Friday May 18th, 2012 2:30 PM
Categories: Alternative Energy, Automotive, Maker Faire | 18 Comments
The Viper is one of the most ambitious projects ever created for Maker Faire. This dedicated group of Young Makers decided to build a fully functioning flight simulator. They sketched their idea in Lego, and then brought it to life. All it took was a chopped up fuselage, software engineering, welded frames, a ton of servos, sound design, a Battlestar Galactica marathon, and of course, teamwork. Experience The Viper at Maker Faire Bay Area, May 19th and 20th.
You can also check out our interview with Team Viper.
Subscribe to the Meet The Makers Podcast in iTunes, or watch it on YouTube.
Check out more episodes of Meet The Makers.
Posted by Melissa Morgan | Friday May 18th, 2012 2:00 PM
Categories: Crowdfunding, Flying, Kids & Family, Maker Faire, Makers, Young Makers | No Comments
Exclusively in the Maker Shed, this updated Redpark Breakout Pack for Arduino and iOS makes interfacing your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the real world easy! This bundle includes the new RedPark TTL Cable for iOS so a TTL adapter (and soldering) is no longer required.
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