For those that don't know, for a few years there has been a quarterly magazine called 'Make' produced in the US, recently joined by 'Craft' magazine. Both of these have gained quite a following of 'Tinkerers', sufficient to warrant having it's own event (now in two venues). I know of nothing in the UK quite like it- it is part festival, part art exhibition, part workshop, part convention- it sort of defies description, but I'll try....
The event is held in a big event centre, not far from San Francisco. It has a number of large halls, each with a number of things in, including a couple of stages for talks and demonstrations.
One hall is full of small stands of stuff (the only description that works!), largely from individuals and clubs (although there are a few trade stands interspersed)- this hall included a 3D printer using sugar, various robot stands, a giant giaraffe, electric cars, furniture and art exhibits, RC cars, planes, animatronic puppets and all manner of other exhibits.
A seperate building housed a similar range of craft type stalls- knitting, weaving, printing etc- although I didn't stay long in there.
Another building was the 'Dark Room' housing stuff that didn't want too much light- lig
ht up bicycle wheels, tesla coils, glowing orbs, shadow puppetry and the suchlike
There was a hall called the 'Bizarre Bazaar' which housed lots of stalls selling handmade crafts, much like the craft building.
Yet another a hall housed 'TechShop'- this is a group based in the Bay Area, where for an annual subscription of $800 you can have access to a wide range of tools, machinery and classes. They brought much of this with them- In no particular order there were Mills, laser cutters, CNC routers, Vinyl cutters, vacuum former, CNC hot wire cutters and a whole host of other pieces of tooling being demonstrated.
Outside there were loads of large things happening;
A number of 'Art Cars' were scattered around the grounds, the most popular seemed to be the Lego one, where kids and their parents were busy building sculptures onto the car.
There were plenty of pedal powered devices- hacked bicycles, and ones with wooden frames, but the most impressive was the Buscycle- one where multiple people pedalled together to move it around.
Quite a lot of robots were around, including some very large impressive beasts, many breathing fire from somewhere on them, or being demonstrated destroying shop dummies.
Powertool drag racing was definitely one of the highlights- Circular saws, chainsaws, sanders etc, tarted up with riders (dolls/ stuffed toys) and set off against each other.
There were a couple of stages with various bands, conventional and playing home-made instruments were performing, giving quite a festival atmosphere.
There were loads of fire sculptures, which really came to life after the sun went down- everywhere you turned there seemed to be fireballs going off... These were joined later on by a 1.39MV Tesla coil being run up- pretty impressive to watch from a few tens of feet away (until it stopped working!!!). (see the video at the linke below)
There were quite a few Steampunk goings on including a Jules Verne inspired land ship- the Neverwas Haul, which was very impressive in it's size and decoration. This was joined by a steam car, whistles and various paraphernalia.
After all that- my favourite (helped in no way by the mice, honest ;o) ) was the giant mousetrap. This is a construction using bowling balls of the mousetrap board game, extending over an area of something like 50 x 150ft and up to about 20ft high. It evidently needs a complete artic trailer to transport and is largely made of steel scrap. A truly impressive feat.
The photos below will give a taste of what was going on, but for more, have a look at my Flickr page or at make magazine's website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsuperpants/...57604886899392/
http://makezine.com/
I would thoroughly recommend a trip to this it if you ever get the chance, although I am reliably informed that thought is being given to starting one in Europe in the future. I certainly will be coming back with a lot of ideas!
Monster robot- just finished a demonstration of ripping mannequins to pieces
Hacked wooden bicycle
One of the many fire displays as the sun was setting
Robot Giraffe that was wandering round the site pumping out 'Banging Tunes'
Lego Art Car- need I say more?
The Buscycle- bicycle based bus as the name suggests
Cool fire breathing buggy
