Yesterday I went to the Maker Faire in New York City, the first time it's been here. It was held at the New York Hall of Science, which is actually the old expo fairgrounds in Brooklyn, made famous as the scene of the final battle in Men in Black.
The Faire was nothing what I expected. I thought it would be something more akin to the MIT Flea Market, which I attend regularly: a bunch of old and young, mostly male, geeks. But instead, it was a very strange blend of families, kids doing cool projects, craft people, and just general strangeness.
At the Sparkfun booth, they were showing kids how to solder. Sparkfun is one of my favorite companies so I'm really glad to see them help grow the community this way.
(more after the jump)
This strange contraption below was labeled the world's largest mousetrap. A bowling ball would make its way around the course, finally unleashing devastation on a poor little rodent.
I loved the homebrew
CNC equipment:
and the younger crowd also got a huge kick out of it:
Meanwhile, I drooled over the jet-powered motorcycle....
And finally, I spent a lot of time at the TOOOL booth, where they were holding lockpicking classes. We learned how to get out of handcuffs, shim a padlock, and pick pin-tumbler locks from the master lockpicker himself, Deviant Ollam. At the very end of the day, there was a lock picking contest. My teammate Steve and I were called Team Coca (after Connecticut + California, not the plant, silly). Pictured here is Team Coca with Steve on the right, Deviant on the left, and moi in the middle.
Team Coca beated out the other competitors to win the grand prize: our very own lock pick sets! :-) Woohoo!
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