Picking locks with Toool

What Maker Faire would be complete without teaching children the joys of jiggling and twisting locks until they’ve opened? Toool, the open organisation of lockpickers made their way to New York this weekend to show off their bumping skills and get the kids interested in manipulating small mechanical devices.

The guys from Toool had a very cool setup – just … Read the rest

Running into the Form 1 printer at Maker Faire

The Form 1 resin printer Kickstarter met its funding goal in just about 8 hours, and after five days is on track to be the most successful Kickstarter to date. Being so successful meant we had to drop by the FormLabs booth at Maker Faire to see what the hubub is.

From the sample prints floating around the booth, the … Read the rest

Rideable hexawalker is Chibikart’s kin

The folks from MIT made their way to the NYC Maker Faire, and of course brought a pair of Chibikarts. [Nancy Ouyang] wouldn’t allow those portable go karts take center stage at the MIT booth though; her Hexarideablepod (yes, that’s what she calls it) saw much more action from the kids clamoring to take something for a drive.

From … Read the rest

Control Giant Fireballs With Your Mind

[Matt Oehrlein] and [Ed Platt] from the i3 Detroit hackerspace created the Mind Flame project. The project uses Electroencephalography (EEG) sensors from NeuroSky to measure the user’s concentration level. When you’re concentrating hard enough, the Mind Flame launches a giant fireball, which probably breaks your concentration pretty quickly.

Propane is accumulated in tanks, and then released past a hot … Read the rest

Large version of Operation isn’t much easier than the original

Last weekend at the Detroit Maker Faire, the folks at the Lansing Makers Network brought a large-scale version of the classic electronic board game Operation.

MegOperation, as the Lansing hackerspace calls their build, is a gigantic printout of the chronically ill guy from Operation plastered onto a sheet of plywood. Wire loops surround each incision to detect when a … Read the rest

NC Maker Faire 2012: Other Projects

Maker Faire NC 2012 Splat Space

Although I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to at the Faire, there was a ton of stuff that was interesting enough for a mention. Many of these could probably merit their own separate article, and I didn’t get to talk about everything, so feel free to comment, or better yet write in to the tip line if you … Read the rest

Raleigh Maker Faire 2012

raleigh maker faire 2012

As [Caleb] mentioned earlier, I attended the Raleigh Maker Faire this year as an exhibitor. Although the table was for my personal site, some of you might have noticed that I was wearing a sweet [HAD] shirt and dispensing our stickers (which seemed to fly off the table). The event was extremely fun from the “other end of the … Read the rest