July 27 & 28, 2013 - Maker Faire
This was the 4th Annual Maker Faire Detroit held July 27th and 28th at The Henry Ford in Dearborn MI, in collaboration with Make: makezine.com. Detroit Metro Mashup staff have made it to three of the four and we’ve had a fun and fascinating experience every time. This year was bigger and better than ever with 400 Makers, including tinkerers, hackers, and inventors, 100 of them new to Maker Faire this year.
Favorite exhibits that returned in 2013 were the Life Size Mousetrap, EepyBird with the Coke and Mentos display, the Big Dog, the Time Machine, and many, many more. Dominating the central area of the Fair and, sadly, making its final Maker Faire appearance, was the huge fire-breathing art-car dragon Gon KiRin. Another favorite of DMM this year were the robot teams competing in Frisbee basketball. We have posted a video for this as well as photos.
This is a really big event, both in size and in importance to the SE Michigan DIY (do it yourself) community. Much of the floor space inside the Henry Ford Museum, as well as most of its outdoor grounds, is taken over by robots, light displays, bizarre vehicles, 3D printing, food vendors, futuristic artwork, general high tech gadgetry, and DIY of all sorts. It would be hard to imagine a better venue than The Henry Ford for Maker Faire. The museum contains a plethora of historic technology, much of it massive, that makes a compelling, transitioning backdrop to the typically smaller, digital, DIY tech that is all over the floor and the parking lots.
Maps are very helpful at Maker Faire and were available both on the paper media “Event Guide” and through the “Maker Faire Detroit 2013” app that Compuware created for our smartphones. The Ford Motor Company Fund and Pure Michigan were “Ultimate Sponsors” of the 2013 Faire while other critically important sponsors included Denso, Pepsi, University of Michigan Dearborn, Kettering University, ShopBot, the Automotive Hall of Fame, and the Metro Times. These organizations all deserve a big round of applause for sponsoring such a high-tech event as Maker Faire in the Detroit area. These are exactly the sorts of events that should be promoted throughout the Detroit Metro area to teach creativity, technology, science, and the ability to do-it-yourself!
We at DMM encourage you to make the effort and take the time to attend the 2014 Maker Faire next summer. Take your kids and take your parents. There are things to see and do for everyone, including walking around in awe of both the Henry Ford Museum and of the people doing all this DIY, who are helping to build a creative future in unforeseen ways. We took a lot of photos this year, so go click on the photo stack link above and either reminisce about what you saw at the Faire or start making plans to go see these things in person next year!
Links for more information are:
http://makezine.com/2013/07/27/maker-faire-detroit-day-one/
https://www.facebook.com/MakerFaireDetroit
https://www.facebook.com/thehenryford
Favorite exhibits that returned in 2013 were the Life Size Mousetrap, EepyBird with the Coke and Mentos display, the Big Dog, the Time Machine, and many, many more. Dominating the central area of the Fair and, sadly, making its final Maker Faire appearance, was the huge fire-breathing art-car dragon Gon KiRin. Another favorite of DMM this year were the robot teams competing in Frisbee basketball. We have posted a video for this as well as photos.
This is a really big event, both in size and in importance to the SE Michigan DIY (do it yourself) community. Much of the floor space inside the Henry Ford Museum, as well as most of its outdoor grounds, is taken over by robots, light displays, bizarre vehicles, 3D printing, food vendors, futuristic artwork, general high tech gadgetry, and DIY of all sorts. It would be hard to imagine a better venue than The Henry Ford for Maker Faire. The museum contains a plethora of historic technology, much of it massive, that makes a compelling, transitioning backdrop to the typically smaller, digital, DIY tech that is all over the floor and the parking lots.
Maps are very helpful at Maker Faire and were available both on the paper media “Event Guide” and through the “Maker Faire Detroit 2013” app that Compuware created for our smartphones. The Ford Motor Company Fund and Pure Michigan were “Ultimate Sponsors” of the 2013 Faire while other critically important sponsors included Denso, Pepsi, University of Michigan Dearborn, Kettering University, ShopBot, the Automotive Hall of Fame, and the Metro Times. These organizations all deserve a big round of applause for sponsoring such a high-tech event as Maker Faire in the Detroit area. These are exactly the sorts of events that should be promoted throughout the Detroit Metro area to teach creativity, technology, science, and the ability to do-it-yourself!
We at DMM encourage you to make the effort and take the time to attend the 2014 Maker Faire next summer. Take your kids and take your parents. There are things to see and do for everyone, including walking around in awe of both the Henry Ford Museum and of the people doing all this DIY, who are helping to build a creative future in unforeseen ways. We took a lot of photos this year, so go click on the photo stack link above and either reminisce about what you saw at the Faire or start making plans to go see these things in person next year!
Links for more information are:
http://makezine.com/2013/07/27/maker-faire-detroit-day-one/
https://www.facebook.com/MakerFaireDetroit
https://www.facebook.com/thehenryford
