The Maker Faire was held in Newcastle over the weekend and I went to see what all the fuss was about on Saturday:
After having a well deserved lie-in on Saturday, I headed over to the Centre of Life on the Metro. As soon as I left Central Station I noticed signs of the Faire, with knitting covering the streets of Newcastle. I found out later that most of these creative bundles of wool were knitted neurons =]
Once at the entrance, there were a number of attractions to keep everyone amused whilst queuing outside. This included a spinning flowerpot, a moving public toilet cubicle, a wheelie bin that chased the kids around and a sprinkler traffic cone. Inside the foyer the Centre looked deceptively normal, apart from the presence of two moving hammer-head robots with bright cyclops eyes, which inspected you as you passed through the ticket gates.
The atmosphere was buzzing as I walked into the main part of the Faire. The first thing I saw was a giant cardboard spider, with a few lads sat underneath selling chain mail and showing off clockwork heart models. After a somewhat geeky conversation about Mithril (Lord Of The Rings) I moved on. The Faire was fairly busy and it became difficult to stay at any stall for too long, but some of the things that really captured my attention were hand-made Daleks, clockwork jewellery, flirt/chat line beer mats, electronic spray graffiti, a biofeedback art installation and a Thinking Cap. The latter is a hat in the shape of a brain which lights up according to the brainwave patterns it senses, I was told it was the only device of its kind in existence! Furthermore, I had a go at the Blinkatron, a creation which mimics the weeping angels from a Dr Who episode. Basically, you look through a hole in a box and when you blink, the machine detects a change in the reflections from your eye and causes the image of the angel to move further towards you. Scary stuff!
I enjoyed myself so much that I decided to go back again on Sunday.
Sunday began with a fire breathing dragon! Unfortunately, I was not able to view the show in which the robot actually breathed fire, but it looked amazing all the same. Once inside I was expecting my experience to be the same as Saturday. However, I had a completely different day. Firstly, it was less crowded and I was able to look around more freely without being pushed out of the way by excited kids. Secondly, I had more conversations with the stall holders because they weren't as busy with other visitors. This allowed me to discover a bit more about some of the inventions. Amongst other things, I won chocolate by moving so slowly that infra-red alarms wouldn't detect the movement, I made a pinhole camera, I discovered how a 3D printer works and I streaked out my very own culture of Bacillus Subtilis (which I do in the labs at uni all the time, but I've never had my very own culture!). Furthermore, I was the second person that day to win an automated dice game/mathematic puzzle!
By the end of the day, I was loaded with my new inventions as well as about 50 business cards from many of the different stalls! Unfortunately, a few of the stalls had ran out of materials so I was unable to make a gelatin watch and couldn't attempt to make a pie-on-a-stick, but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself and stayed at the Faire until my friend and I literally got kicked out by the staff =]
Overall, the weekend was brilliant and I will definitely go again next year! By far the most memorable event of the weekend was the Arc Attack performance. Arc Attack are a group of creators who use Tesla Coils to produce electrical arcs of lightning which "sing", with each arc creating a different note. The Back To The Future theme tune was definitely my favourite song! So with a good haul of creations and a brain full of science and ideas, the Maker Faire was certainly the best event I have been to in a long time!
