CandyFab managed to infiltrate a couple of the other 3D printing projects at Maker Faire this past weekend. That's me above, at the MakerBot booth, in my brand-new MakerBot shirt, explaining MakerBot to some Maker Faire visitors. Below, Kenji's Fab at Home sports a brand new CandyFab vinyl racing sticker. CandyFab itself performed like a champ, printing candy and raising blood sugar levels all weekend while we talked shop with all the other fabbers.
I've just returned from a week long trip to Shenzhen, China in a "geek tour" trip organized by Bunnie Huang, with some assistance from the fine folks at PCH International.
More than just a tour, this was also a tiny conference of open source and physical computing hardware hackers. The participants were (from left to right above) Jeevan Kalanithi, Eric Schweikardt, Bunnie Huang, Nathan Seidle, Leah Buechley, myself (Windell Oskay), Tom Igoe, and David Merrill.
(Thanks to Tom Igoe for the photo. Thanks also to Dale Dougherty for helping to get such a great set of folks in contact for the trip!)
Shenzhen is a vibrant, bustling, young, and modern city of 8 million in southern China. Just across the border from Hong Kong, Shenzhen and the region around it comprise one of the most active and important manufacturing centers in the world today. (Hint: "made in China" sounds familiar.) The city itself is filled with people, restaurants, smog and shiny skyscrapers. At night freakishly large LED billboards illuminate the sides of apartment buildings and animated RGB neon displays ripple above nightclubs and bars. With a few more flying cars, it might do a good impression of Blade Runner's Los Angeles.
For me personally, one of the most interesting parts of this trip was spending some time in the vast electronic markets of downtown Shenzhen. The building pictured above, the SEG Electronic Market, is a focal point in the markets. Bunnie wrote quite a bit about this place two years ago (and it's all true).
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| The Smithsonian Channel's series America Wild & Wacky is featuring ArtCar Fest. In a blog post about the episode, they linked to my flickr video from Maker Faire of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. Here for your entertainment is my clip of hundreds of computer controlled singing sea creatures performing Bohemian Rhapsody. |
On our way to Maker Faire Austin, we grabbed a bite to eat at the San Jose airport, where we saw this rather confusing sign on a soda machine: "NO REFILLS--Refills Available For .59¢" So which is it, refills or no refills? And do they really make change for a penny? |
We had a wonderful time at Maker Faire Austin. I've put some pictures and videos up in this flickr set for your enjoyment.
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Our neighbors at Maker Faire were Kris and Carly who were doing very fun things with LEDs, like making Monopoly more fun by lighting up when you land on certain squares. The no-solder wiring system was very clever, and the flashing blue and red lights in jail were perfect.
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This cute little robotics platform stopped by for a visit, but in order to see most of the rest of the faire we had to pry ourselves away from our table, which was tough. There was a nice collection of art cars, including this Chia Car. Maker Faire is wonderfully overwhelming, and we didn't take very many pictures. Luckily, many other people took pictures too, and you can check lots of them out on flickr. | |
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| Sturgeon's Mill is a steam-powered sawmill in northern California. I had the privilege of seeing it running recently. The next demonstration dates are Sept 20 & 21 and Oct 18 & 19. If you have any cause to be near Sebastopol, California on those dates, I highly recommend a visit. |
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| Specialized machinery is fascinating, but you don't often get to see it. Our local bakery, Le Boulanger (at their headquarters on Mathilda in Sunnyvale) provides windows from their seating area into the production area. It is absolutely wonderful to sit and watch the dough poured out of the giant mixer. It heads into a hopper which cuts it into pieces which get spun into balls, which go through the rising machine and roll out down the conveyor belt. Sourdough rounds are on the way! And that's just one of the processes you can watch. Sometimes you'll see bagels, sometimes pastries, sometimes breadsticks... It's definitely worth a visit, and even more fun than the Krispy Kreme machine which only does one thing. And they have free (albeit slow) wi-fi! |
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Saturday was the first Electronics Flea Market for 2008. We went, a little late as usual, but early for us. When we got our coffee and donuts at 8:30, there were already some vendors packing up; they had been there for hours and sold enough to call it a day. The weather was beautiful, and we all got sunburned, but we also took home a nice haul of goodies.
Above: the pretty stuff put in a cigar box for the benefit of photographers like me. |
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We used to live in Austin, Texas, and welcomed the Austin Maker Faire this past October as an excuse to go back and visit. We had a great time at the fair, where our high tech pumpkins (especially the snapping pumpkins) garnered several editor's choice ribbons.
It was really fun to be back in Austin and remember what we loved so much. One of the things we really miss is the food. I took the picture above of the beautiful neon sign at Magnolia, one of the best of restaurants. Not only do they serve really good food, but they're open 24/8. The distinct lack of independent 24 hour restaurants in silicon valley is somewhat depressing, but we're glad to see that the culture is still thriving in Austin, where Magnolia has opened a second branch. Of course, we inevitably also were reminded of what we don't love so much. You know how they say that everything is bigger in Texas? Well, it's true about the bugs. [Technorati tags: austin, texas, maker faire, magnolia, 24 hours, neon, culture] |
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Meggy Jr RGB
LED matrix game
development kit.
Business-card sized
AVR target boards
Peggy 2
LED Pegboard kits
