This was a new venue for both Shopbot, and the Maker Faire. We took over a large part of the Henry Ford museum, and there was a very good crowd on hand…
We started off the morning with some breakfast goodies outside at the tent booth we used for the Faire, and then went inside for some talks, Show and Tell, and lunch.
Ted Hall spoke about the latest goings on in Durham. Al Kluge showed off some of his lithophanes, and LED lit plastic pieces. Paul Raukar brought in a bunch of pictures showing us how he uses his machine to cut beautiful pieces of ice sculpture for banquets, etc. ( www.icedreams.net) And then we got into a session on how to use vacuum as a hold down method.
After lunch we all went back out to the tent and we were joined by James Booth who did a few hours of “software coaching” and showed off some tips/tricks of the Vectric line…
During the Faire itself we ran two of the upcoming “desk top” machines. One was cutting four sided models of a classic Ford truck out of HDU, while the other one cut out plywood “car parts” (see above) , plastic key chains, and a few “on the fly”signs for people at the Faire who needed something special.
As with most Maker Faires we had great “neighbors”for the booth. One was the “bassmobile”which comprised of a few hundred crutaceans who actually “sang” in synchronization while they also “danced”. On the other side of the booth was the “Diet Coke/Mentos fountain show”in which large fountains of soda were generated by dropping Mentos into hundreds of bottles at the same time. A messy crowd pleaser…
And two of the other occupants of the “Fabrication tent” were businesses who rent shop time for people who don’t have room where they live. BOTH groups have Shopbots available for their
patrons !
Throughout the weekend we were all impressed by the “fleet”of work trucks/cars which are in daily use by the museum staff. They were all (Ford obviously) trucks from the 20’s,30’s onward, and they still ran beautifully…The Ford complex is SO large that none of us had nearly enough time to catch more than a fraction of it. It was a great venue for us, and the tens of thousands of people who attended…
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