Category Archives: Field Trips
Maker Faire Detroit 2011
Articulated hand from servo motors, fishing line, and energy chain.
HackPittsburgh used the Easy Cheese nozzle for direct and easy cheesy printing.
The Henry Ford staff were running some of their replica vehicles, including this steam motor bike.
The Power Races were highly entertaining.
This racer from OmniCorpDetroit even rickrolled the crowd.
You can find a few more Maker Faire pictures in the flickr set.
We’ve also posted a few brightwork pictures from the Walter P. Chrysler Museum for those chrome lovers out there.
Field trip: Marine Mammal Center
The Marine Mammal Center, located in Sausalito, California, is an institution dedicated to the study and health of marine mammals, particularly seals, sea lions, otters, and whales. In their extensive veterinary programs, they rescue, rehabilitate and often release many of these animals, and work to identify causes of illness and injury.
Visitors to the center can see some of the healthier patients (not the ones in the ICU) in these outdoor hospital pens shaded by solar panels as well as the research labs and a great many exhibits about these creatures.
We were recently invited to a behind-the-scenes tour of the center to get a first hand look at some of the amazing equipment and machinery that is needed to run a hospital for these unique patients.
In what follows, we’ll show you some of the neat things that most visitors don’t get to see, from glowing purple plasma to Nike missile silo blast doors.
Photos from the 2011 Bay Area MakerFaire
We’ve just posted over 150 photos from this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire, in this here flickr set. What a blast!
(Above, Steve Hoefer demonstrates his Secret Knock Gumball Machine.)
National Robotics Week
It’s National Robotics Week, and for us that means RoboGames!
BarBot 2011 gave us just a taste of what is to come this weekend at the huge international robotics competition in San Mateo. We rounded up some video links of Drink Making Unit 2.0:
- Singularity Hub Drinks at BarBot 2011 by singularityhub (from 2:40 to the end)
- Drink Making Unit 2.0 at BarBot 2011 by partyrobotics
- EMSL’s Drink Making Unit 2.0 from k0re on flickr
Lots of the BarBot partygoers posted photos to flickr too, including a huge set from Spaceman Sam and lots more from ekai, nicolecwong, ninaviss, hackmancoltaire, k0re, shifzr and amyr_81.
We’ll be at RoboGames all weekend, participating in the symposium and selling a few choice kits and components. So get your tickets now! If you’re not in the bay area check the National Robotics Week event listingsto find an event near you.
Photo from BarBot 2011 by Samuel Coniglio.
Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2011
Drink Making Unit 2.0
Barbot 2011, the cocktail robotics exhibition, is happening on Friday and Saturday nights this weekend– April 1 and 2 –in San Francisco. If you haven’t been to one of these events (and you happen to like both cocktails and robots), let me tell you: you are missing out.
Last year we built the aptly named Drink Making Unit for the event. The Drink Making Unit used three –ahem– food-safe pumps to craft white russians, and was quite a hit at the show– especially amongst people who recognized the pumps.
This year, we’ve designed a brand new bartending machine, Drink Making Unit 2.0, which we are pleased to unveil today, and unleash upon the world this weekend.
Aside from the once-again-apt-but-not-very-descriptive name, Drink Making Unit 2.0 has very little in common with last year’s machine. The mechanism is all new, and features elements borrowed from sources as diverse as pet stores, chemistry labs, and Japanese gardens. It dispenses any six fluids (up from three), in metered and selectable quantities, and also sports an all-new extra-snazzy control panel. Continue reading Drink Making Unit 2.0
Dorkbotting
Fall Field Trips!
Coming up soon: Combots Cup V at the San Mateo Event Center on Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24. Combots is the annual heavyweight robot combat championship.
“This event highlights the best combat robot teams in America and their 220 pound flame-throwing, blade-spinning, titanium shearing robots of destruction! Whether you’re a sports fan or techno geek, ComBots puts on the best robot events in the world! If you missed seeing fighting robots at Maker Faire this year, or are longing for RoboGames, here’s your chance to see them again.”
That same weekend: East Bay Mini-Maker Faire is on Sunday, October 24 at the Park Day School in Oakland. We’ll be bringing our Egg-Bots and showing off a few of their Halloween related applications.
We hope to see you there!
Robogames 2006 photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid under cc-by-nc license.
Maker Faire NY 2010: Preview Pix
We’re out here in Queens for Maker Faire NY 2010, at the New York Hall of Science– which is also the former 1964-65 World’s Fair grounds. Amazing location, and it’s amazing to see everything coming together for this weekend.
You can see more pictures from today in this photo set. We’ll hope to see you there this weekend as well!
