Back from 2017 Seattle Maker Faire

Today Manu and I attended the Seattle Maker Faire. Another year of some exciting things shown at the faire. First and foremost Manu wanted to build and race a pinewood derby car 🙂 which he did quickly as soon as we got in. There were several exhibits around that used arduino based controllers, simple metal working, paper-making, laser cutters, etc. There were several exhibits of interest to us.

1. Pinewood Derby – making and racing sponsored by CNC Routers. They primarily sell the CNC machines which are fantastic beasts on their own selling for $5000 to $50,000 that can cut, drill, smoothen, and shape wood and metal in many ways.
2. There were 10s of maker spaces who had exhibit stalls to advertise their membership and classes. Most of these were on the Seattle side and very limited ones on Bellevue side.
3. King County Library system is starting up the ideaX at Bellevue Library. They had an exhibit too.
4. Museum of Flight had kits for kids to build their own simple flyer with paper, copper strips, CR2032 cell battery and LED for light. Pretty cool and low cost fun. Also they had a promotion for contest at the Museum for which kids are encouraged to write up essays.
5. There was the R2 Droid makers who had several R2 droids on display and operating around the floor
6. Laser Cutters are becoming more of a norm. Glowforge as usual had a lot to show. There were a few other groups showing Laser cutting machines and exhibits.
7. 3D printers seemed ubiquitous as well .. many exhibitors made stuff with 3D printers. And some of these folks made 3D printers too themselves. There was even a 3D Anycubic Kossel printer for $180 on display.
8. The Kite Fliers from Anacortes had simple exhibit allowing us to make our own kites.
9. I loved the RAD Power Bikes who had several real working (and sales ready) electric bikes with fenders and back storage. Despite seemingly heavy at about 50-70 lbs in weight, they were a pleasure to ride in. And they cost about $1500-$1700 offering 40 miles of range at 20MPH. On inquiry I found that it may take about 10 years before the weight of the bikes may drop to 30-40 lbs range. Who knows, perhaps more worldwide adoption of electric bikes may change the economics. I would love to see us use more bikes and less cars, if possible.
10. There were several kit makers and sellers who had Arduino based STEM education kits.

And definitely many more to expose the 7-year old to.