Mini-Maker Faire

We had a great day out at the Maker Faire yesterday.  It was a stunning spring day and people came out in force to see the exciting things that people had made.   For me, the day was the culmination of our year-long tech class led by Paul Chayka from Robotics and Beyond.  In the class the children had come up with something they wanted to make.   Finally the day had come for the kids to show the world what they had made.

Claire decided she wanted to make a tracking dog collar.  The prototype was equipped with a GPS system, to track the location of the dog and a screen that displays your phone number along with the dog’s name.   It was a complicated project with many components, which all had to be connected on a bread board and a basic stamp micro controller.  Claire wrote the program on Paralax.

The children had plenty of opportunity to share what they had made with the community.  Thousands of people came by during the day, and it was fun to catch up with old friends and other homeschoolers who came by and hung out with us.

Maker Faires are inspirational places. I loved wondering around getting ideas for future projects. I might just have to get a 3D printer!

Tristan's idea was to make a lego Minecraft terrain and a remote controlled robot with a claw that would pick up lego pieces and move them around the board.  He had fun sharing his project (for a while) before the lure of all the projects going on around him were too much to resist.

I couldn't wipe the smile off Tristan's face all the way home in the car!  It was a great day.