Sunday, September 16, 2012

Portland's First OMSI Mini Maker Faire!


Mini Maker Success! 
Part I







As my boyfriend chatted at his tent about all things Raspberry PieMaker with the crowd I meandered the booths to get some awesome images of some other really cool tents & events. Here are photos of his booth. If you stop by he will chat with you about how he uses his Raspberry Pi to run his 3D Printer. Pretty cool stuff…



Trinity Labs had a booth next to the Raspberry PieMaker booth and they were printing some pretty cool 3D images. It was tough getting over to their booth for photos but I will have more tomorrow in part II.I was also directing people over to the Maker Shed because they had a really great deal on the Maker Magazine-5 issues for $25 which is a really sweet deal, lots of cool products for sale, and they also had a really nice 3D printer with some of the smoothest plastic pieces made. You would have thought it was plastic made from molds. The technology these days is out of sight!





This is what the Make Booth looks like. If you were wondering how their prices are, we found they were very good. I don't have a photo but he picked up a really cool kit and it was about $15-$20 less than their online prices. So, if that's not incentive to save some money then I don't know what it. They didn't have all of the cool kits there that they do online so if you are interested, I would suggest picking up what you want as you see it.

A booth a few down was dedicated to Living Sea Sculpture and coral reef restoration. She had some pretty cool pieces out and I will definitely get more photos tomorrow. There was quite the crowd.




Dorkbot had a total of five different booths, one dedicated to soldering, one on Grassroots mapping, PSAS Rockets, one on Bee Counting and Bee Keeping, and then a booth on Furniture Soldering. I had a chance to take a few images though I admit I do not currently know what grassroots mapping is. I guess I will stop by tomorrow and find out ;)



I love bees and data so this was fun.








We could not have asked for nicer weather. As the OMSI Trebuchet hoisted the counterweights and flew projectile high into the air once an hour and robots hit the pavement as naturally as the humans, I surfed the crowd and landed not only on a booth dedicated to the making of jewelry out of old skateboards! How cool is that? Their shop name is MapleXD. Here are some images of the crafters at work in front of their machinery. 

I was unable to get some close up images of the jewelry itself but I assure you they were pretty cool!



Throughout this Mini Maker Faire there were really cool displays. Next door I found another crafter hard at work on his machine at Truce Designs, LLC. 

Not only did I like the display but I liked those machines!

This guy was totally cool and jumped over onto a machine to demonstrate his craft 

The bags he made were pretty cool. If I have time I think I might stop by and chat with him about those sewing machines. We all know I love sewing machines!!!

Down and around the corner I found the coolest -a juice bike bar where your pedaling moves the juice bar around. They are called the Handlebar Bike Bar. Awesomeness!


Here we have children at play in front of a lego demonstration booth called Milwaukie Robotics. 
Super cool stuff!

This was a totally popular booth and the kids were so into the displays they barely noticed the camera popping in for a few shots. Impressive stuff and we clearly have a large bunch of sharp kids.

Across the way I discovered Mr. Green Beans was offering the sale of coffee, soaps and lotions. 

As the booths were packed with inquisitive guests it was difficult to get images and get close enough to personally inquire on all of the details but I encourage you to check the peoples shops and crafting as each and every one was really cool. And if you’re in store for geek related scrap materials and supplies then Surplus Gizmos is always offering, well, gizmos of course ;)


Etchshop was pretty cool and they were demonstrating laser woodblocks. 

The designs were awesome 


Rockets




Punk Rockets demonstrated some pretty cool stuff and Lucas Ainsworth featured Kinetic Creatures as Robby Kraft showed off some robotic instruments.






These people had some of the coolest booths! I'm telling you, come on down to OMSI today if you're local and see what's going on. You won't be bored and you certainly won't be disappointed!




The day was filled with rockets and if this wasn’t as close to an adult science faire I don’t know what is.Oregon Rocketry had a pretty cool booth beyond the survival skills booths.

One of the things I really liked about the fair was there was a really nice mix of different booths with different events and displays going on.

It was also really nice that the booths were geared to both children and adults alike.

Ok this booth as totally hilarious




Comics & Posters
the Juice Bar again...

Woot! Shoes... They make me smile too! Always... hehe

Everyone was so friendly.The shoes shown at this booth were really quite awesome 



You can get Beer here by the way... ;)

Steampunk Baby! Liked the booth and the gentleman were so friendly :) 

Crafters at work and I have to admit, those were some really cool pieces they had on display. It made me want a pair for the Shih Tsu for photo ops...

Thank you guys for letting me get some cool photos for the online crowd!


Juice up and go for a ride...

Robots! Next to this model are some cool pieces of jewelry and led gadgets. more photos to come as the crowd lightens.





more robots...

                                                                      & more cool stuff...
This was an awesome booth and more photos will again be in Part II as there were so many people crowding these awesome pieces shown.

Are those arduino tasers? Do tell... (I will stop by and give the details in Part II I promise ;)


cool stuff here

and here...
This is the website for Destination DIY-fun stuff!

Woot! Here we have Criminal Crafts and I had a chance to stop by and check out the action and pick up one of her craft books.

Signed by Miss Demeanor herself.

By the way, this is a really awesome craft book if you were wondering. Definitely worth it!

Can you tell we're all having a blast?
You can check out her etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/criminalcrafts

Is that a googlie-eyed sprouting sock monster?!
And yes, I was slightly scolded for not picking up one or two of those Monster Wrestling Mask Kits. I hope she's offering them on etsy. 

3D printers are so very awesome. 

So was this booth! These look like some pretty cool models...


and people walking around with cool belts

Start Making! It's the theme of the day

This image is another one of the Etchpop booth 

loot

This booth was really cool. They were able to take the data from the etch a sketch and have the device you see in the image write that image. He also said he could change the marker out for a dremel tool and it will carve the image out as well. That's pretty awesome. I sort of compared it to the idea of the egg bot on Thingiverse. This could be a lot of fun...

I think this display was part of the Dorkbot collection. Really cool sculptures here.

Happy Halloween?! This was a fun booth to check out.

little mad scientists doing their thing

Robots..Rockets..and hello future!



And that's about it for now. I am off to gather some intel on today's events and bring back Part II tomorrow. If anyone that was at the fair sees this post and wants images emailed to them I will of course be happy to send those along and you are welcome to email me. My email is Craftzies@gmail.com. Have a blast and you'll all be hearing from me again soon!

Lindsay :)

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