PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD | Table of Contents: |
Did you know how to solder by age 7? Take apart mechanical clocks and turn them into drag-racers? Are you the kind who drools over the Estes Model Rocketry catalog (because there are so many uses for a model rocket engine that have nothing to do with model rockets)? Or the type who fondles metallic yarn with an eye toward knitting up an army of giant steampunk robots?
If so, you probably already make a point of reading Make Magazine (O'Reilly Publishing), the magazine for—well ... for people like you (and me)—and attending its Maker Faires, regional and worldwide gatherings of the clans for geeks of every stripe aspiring to work their vision on the Material Plane.
If you haven't walked around a Maker Faire, you probably should. And don't hesitate to take the family, since (I promise) there's something for everyone. Imagine one event that tempts uber-geeks with state-of-the-art shop-automation tools; cyber-hobbyists with postage-stamp computers and radio-control tech; kid brainiacs with robotics kits; and fabric-and-fiber-arts folks with the latest in programmable sewing, weaving, knitting and machine-embroidery gear.
And then imagine this mashup, wrapped with liberal doses of Urban Crafts Fair and Recycled-Stuff-Art Exhibits, along with Burning-Man-style mechano/incendiary constructs that go whiz and boom, and you get the general idea. While every conventional marketing instinct screams that the diverse communities attracted to Maker Faires (e.g., Burning-Man technoid welder-guy; suburban knitting-projects blogger) have nothing in common, the fact is, they do. These people make stuff. And in this context, they harmonize congenially.
Maker Faires are also a great opportunity to see how technology interpenetrates culture and (gradually or disruptively) changes the nature of human industry, as well as a chance to reflect that this is not a new phenomenon. The inclusion of advanced, computer-controlled shop tech alongside state-of-the-art sewing machines at Maker Faire may give conventional marketers a headache. But it makes total sense if you recall that textile milling was at the root of both the Industrial Revolution and cybernetics (the Jacquard Loom was, after all, arguably the first stored-program machine, and its punch card reader a powerful inspiration to Charles Babbage in designing the Analytical Engine).
We got a chance to walk around this year's World Maker Faire, held the weekend of Sept. 25-26 at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, NYC—an award-winning science museum on the grounds of the 1964 World's Fair. As always, the event attracted an amazingly diverse population of exhibitors, performers and attendees, with major exhibit areas devoted to shop automation, robotics and electronics, and textile crafts, plus self-propelled (and rocket-powered) rides, demos and performances (the Mentos & Coke guys from Epee.com were there)—even a life-size and fully functional version of the classic Rube Goldberg-inspired game, Mouse Trap. Here are some highlights:
Most 3D printers have an open interface so that users can see what's going on during production (source: MakerBot).
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