the onda

Maker Faire Rhode Island was awesome, plain and simple. No matter what the Twitter haters say about it not being as well attended or there not being as many interesting booths, it was well worth attending.

The most impressive thing we got to see was an assembled RepRap which at the very least means that it is possible to make one of these bears (though at the time, it wasn't running due to ambient temperature challenges). Better still, some local folks from Willoughby and Baltic and Dorkbot-Boston had a fully assembled kit from Makerbot Industries which is based on the Rep Rap design but seemed quite a bit more robust (and "assemblable").

We got a chance to see it running and I felt as though we were at the Homebrew Computer Club watching the first Apple Is running Basic. The "product" that they were "printing" was a case for throwable LEDs which didn't exactly make for an awesome demo, but it was still awesome to see each of the layers being laid down.

It was also really nice to meet some of the FIRST contestants, the Lego robotics competition for high school kids that aims to make "geek jocks" out of science, math, and engineering kids in the same way that organized sports build confidence and poise in others. Both at their booth and throughout the entire fair, the nicest thing to see was how outgoing and confident all of the geeky kids were (including, much to my surprise, my two)— whether they were behind a booth or in the crowd, explaining what they were demoing, or simply asking questions.

I was really struck by this last point— as kid after kid talked at me with that twinkle that you see in someone's eye when confidence, skill, and passion come together in the right mix. Clearly Maker Faire (and FIRST and other programs) create environments that really foster this, and for that alone, it was awesome for the organizers to bring it to the east coast.