Dublin Mini Maker Faire 2012

The evidence of a growing revolution in making and hacking in Ireland was very much in effect at the Dublin mini maker faire  this weekend.  I'm sure the Science Gallery were not expecting the huge numbers on the day but they seemed to be coping well.  I arrived with the family early afternoon and after checking out some of the hack the city exhibits we paid a visit to Stephen Howells Kinect 2 Scratch stand.

My daughter couldn't wait to have a go as all the kids in here loved the ping pong game built with just four lines of scratch code. This room was particularly busy and I think a little crowd control would have been welcome to prevent kinect system confusion with recognition but it was great to see the interest here.  Next it was on to the NUI Maynooth makers club. 

Some really interesting projects here also and one thing I noted was the number of Arduinos being used in projects at this stand which really showed how popular this little device is. In this case it was integrated with a pretty cool hack  controlling LEDs in an interactive Tetris game which was another hit with the kids.  It was also in use in an excellent drum sequencer which was blasting out some cool techno beats in the room.

After  a hectic visit to the cafe for some grub we moved outside to the physics lawn.  There was tons to see and do here,  and certainly more going on then I can fit in this article!  Irish hackerspaces TOG and 091 labs along had plenty to show from wearable computing,3D printers  to soldering classes, homebrew, a quadroptor and a giant buzzer game!.  (my daughter was very happy when she left the camp after winning w a TOG duck :-) 

 The "imagineering" carousel of crazy looking steampunk-like toys was a particularly strange but wonderful thing to behold and there were plenty of non tech things to get involved with too, including a giant drum,  cigar box guitars  and model making.  Other strange sounding devices provided background music to the camp. 

 Scalexcercise (from Brighton) and the Lego stands were also excellent. So well done to the organisers and all involved, it was fantastic.  I'm sure this is something that will grow again next year. And I'm hopeful the lightboxlab community here in Drogheda and its surrounding areas we will be able to contribute a project or two to it next year!