Saturday 28 July 2012

MOSI Mini Maker Faire



I went to the Mini Maker Faire at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry today.
It was great. Not on the scale of US events (hence mini) but there was some interesting stuff:


A huge model railway. They wisely kept the model railway enthusiasts isolated from everyone else by keeping them in the power hall. No idea what gauge it was but it was bigger than OO:



The majority of the exhibits were in the 1830's warehouse:
This guy had a Atmega based audio synthesiser. Just plug in a MIDI keyboard and go. The analogue filters could be patched with leads Korg style:

This stand had a pair of metal chimes that were played by a solenoid powered hammer. The hammerwas moved to the appropriate note by a stepper motor:

This lady inspired my son with a collection of model spaceships made from bottles and other bits. We bought her book:

More wacky audio:

This 13 year old kid had made all the models here:

Nophead and Mary + Wes at the mendel90 stand:

Lifesize Operation!:

Crazy golf with Minecraft inspired finale:


Audio generation and art mixed. This set up seemed to be designed to make as much noise as possible with as much redundant (i.e. glued together with no power applied) circuitry as possible. The kids loved it:


It was a great, free day out. MOSI is a great place to take the kids at any time. But we really enjoyed the Faire. Can't wait for the next one.

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