Maker Faire, 2011

The Tornado Intercept Vehicle. Larry, Marla, and Andrew. Though you cannot see it here one of the vehicle's spikes was punched into the concrete parking lot.

This is the second year that the Maker Faire has come to the Henry Ford Museum in the Dearborn/Detroit area. The fair is all about do-it-yourself building projects from the very small to the huge. While the huge projects, like the Gon Kirin fire breathing dragon or the Life Sized Mousetrap, certainly attract attention (they did for us) the smaller projects including swarms of robots and Makerbot printers to name ust two are important too. The fair is really about the spirit of creating things and the joy of experimentation and exploration. It is, of course, great fun to watch the Eppybird gentlemen fire off a display of over 100 Coke Zeros with over 600 Mentos and create geysers of foam that sway back and forth into the sky. But it is their enthusiasm for what they do that is really catching and perhaps some will try creating their own soda foam plumes later on. I joined Larry, Marla, and little Andrew Biederman and we explored what we could on the second day of the Maker Faire. We had a very fine time doing it even though we had to spend some time standing around in lines sweating in the 90+ (F) degree heat. The price for admission seems a bit steep at $28 but I would pay it again.