Last weekend the Tindie crew headed to World Maker Faire in New York to ooh and ahh at the incredible builds on display from makers all over the globe. There was so much to see, and it was great to meet up with Tindarians and throughout the maker community. While I won’t even attempt to summarize the massive Faire, let me point out a few things that I thought were particularly interesting.
TAPIGAMI: The Sticky Version of Origami Built the NYC Skyline
The TAPIGAMI display pictured above outside of the main presentation area in the New York Hall of Science was amazing. It’s meant to represent the city of New York. Get this, it’s made of masking tape! Artist Eben Burgoon, who was there helping with the build, explained that this display of large and small buildings—and even a Millenium Falcon—can be configured to suit the location. But if you caught them at the right time you were treated to tape sculptures coming to life before your very eyes.
Add a Rotary Dimension to a Mill with RotoMill
Apparently I wasn’t the only one that thought this was quite interesting. As seen here on Hackaday, this device is basically a 3-axis CNC machine with the Y-axis rolled out as a lathe-style spindle. While not as capable as a 4 or 5-axis machine, it still presents some unique capabilities at a build cost of around $2000. No word on whether it will actually be sold, but if they do go to market, I know of a certain online marketplace where it would fit in quite nicely!
Tindie People! (We Call Them Tindarians)
Eduardo Contreras from Electronic Cats giving a talk on LoRaWAN
Several Tindie sellers had booths at the event, including Electronic Cats. After asking about the origin of their name, I was told about how the Internet was invented for cats by cats, and it only made sense to name the store “Electronic Cats.” I can’t confirm this origin story, but given the proportion of felines online at any one time, it’s certainly conceivable…
Robert Fitzsimmons of Part Fusion also had a booth, though it was focused on his amazing one-off inventions, like the sky umbrella pictured above. Ray Kholodovsky was there with a K40 laser augmented with his Cohesion3D controls package. Turta was also in attendance—all the way from Turkey—to show off their Raspberry Pi and ESP32 IoT products.
Also at there Faire was Adam from Maniacal Labs, and another Adam who goes by adamjvr on Tindie. If you were there and we didn’t run into each other, we’d still love to see your Maker Faire highlights on Twitter @Tindie.
Other Contraptions: Big Hands, Resin Printers, and Mining Cryptocurrency
Of course there were other highlights, such as the Hand of Man that was able to pick up and drop cars with a spectacular hand shaped hydraulic system, and of course Prusa’s announcement of a resin-based printer. I also enjoyed the concept of the FutureBit cryptocurrency mining devices that plug into a computer like a USB stick.
A Plethora of Interesting Talks and People
For me personally, the real highlight of the Faire was the people. For those in the hacking community, it’s a great chance to get a lot of folks in one place for impromptu or planned meetups, a few of which happened outside of the Faire itself—a big shout out to BeagleBoard for their great bring-a-hack event the Friday before.
The Faire also featured 3 different stages where presenters could talk about their various areas of expertise or experimentation. The YouTube DIY creator stage was certainly a highlight for many, featuring a chance to hear and meet creators such as Bob Clagett, Jimmy Diresta, and Laura Kampf. The auditorium inside the New York Science Center featured a variety of talks, and the DigiKey Electronics Stage outside—as you would certainly gather—focused on electronics topics.
It was great seeing everyone over the weekend, and getting a nice injection of inspiration for future projects. Keep your eye on the Tindie blog for upcoming live events (like the Hackaday Superconference). We’d love to see you at a meetup!
