Maker Faire Milwaukee 2019 – Downtown!

If you haven’t heard the news yet, Maker Faire Milwaukee is back for 2019, and this year there’s a new location… We’ll be at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee! (In fact, you may have already seen some of the digital signage around the Wisconsin Center District promoting the event, thanks to our old buddy Makey the robot.)

The downtown venue will bring new challenges, but we hope it brings new surprises (the good kind) and a new audience who might not have visited us before. We took a tour of the venue this week and it looks really nice, and so far we have no big concerns about the new location.

The other cool thing to share is an interactive map showing where people come from to attend Maker Faire Milwaukee. This shows both makers and attendees for 2017 and 2018. Neat! Who knew there were so many makers around Wisconsin and neighboring states.

If you want to join us this year and help make the awesome, we still need Makers and Volunteers!

Maker Faire? We’re There!

Milwaukee Makerspace is proud to be the co-host of Maker Faire Milwaukee. We don’t know of any other community makerspace that is a partner organization to such a large Maker Faire. Our members support the Faire by bringing awesome and amazing projects and providing a lot of hands-on opportunities to make. Here’s a quick look…

First of all, Milwaukee Makerspace will be there! (Duh!) and we’ll have a large booth containing various members and projects, including Kathy H., Larry, Jeff Throwing Clay, Tom’s Can Cuber, Mark with his Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D Printer and “The Spice Must Flow” SandBot, and we’ll even teach you How to use a Scroll Saw.

Over in the Dark Room you’ll find Adrian’s Jellyfish (Under the Sea) and Billy’s CD Chandelier Supreme, and Pete’s Giant LED Cube. The Dark Room will also be home to Colleen’s Wearable Art and Cosplay Fashion Show, which is not to be missed, and of course the old favorite, Jake’s Rook the Knight versus the Tesla Coils.

We’ve got a few makers who opted for their own booths, so they could promote their products, including Home Rooted Designs, Cerberus Tactical Robot, and Raven Lock.

Outside we’ve got Bay View Forgeworks with Ed and Richard, and right next to them is Dan D. doing an Aluminum casting demonstration and scratch tile workshop, and if you like dinosaur’s check out Isaac’s Arts!

Adrian is also once again running the Design & Build Derby, with the help of a lot of volunteers, they’ll help over 1500 kids build (and decorate) and race their own tiny wooden derby cars. Speaking of cars, the Milwaukee Makerspace Racing Team will be in the Back 40 racing their modified electric race cars. Exciting!

Need more? Well, there’s always Daleks… Dalek Asylum Milwaukee will be back, and joining them will be Megan’s Dalek, Frank’s Dalek, Tom’s Dalek, and Dalek Eclipse.

We hope you can join us at Maker Faire Milwaukee September 28-30, 2018 at State Fair Park. Get your tickets now (they are free) and check out the web site for more makers and a schedule of events.

Maker Faire Milwaukee is Coming!

Good News, Everyone! Maker Faire Milwaukee returns for its fifth year! Milwaukee Makerspace is once again proud to be the co-host of the event along with the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum. We’ll be at Wisconsin State Fair Park on the weekend of September 29th & 30th, 2018.

If you’re interested in learning more about the event, or being involved in some way (as a maker, a volunteer, etc.) consider joining us for the first planning meeting of the year. We’ll be holding the meeting at the new headquarters for Maker Faire Milwaukee, Brinn Labs, which is just a mile north of the space.

The Maker Faire Milwaukee Planning Meeting is set for February 8 at 6:30pm at 433 E Stewart St. in Bay View. We hope to see you there!

Fun in the Booth at the Milwaukee Maker Faire

Last minute decisions work out once in a while.  For example, I was going to be at the Makerspace booth at the Milwaukee Maker Faire for the weekend and wanted some examples of the sorts of things you can use a 3D printer to make, so I grabbed the usual collection of sample prints, and then I thought, “sure, why not?”, and loaded the Van de Graaff generator into the car.  It sat on the floor in the booth for about 1/2 of Saturday and I was getting a little bored, so I moved it closer to the foot traffic and plugged it in.  Wow!  Kids and adults with stunted emotional development went nutz!  They were zapping themselves and each other as if it were more fun than painful.

Sparks!

Sparks!  The VDG produces about 400 kV.

Then I found a plastic bucket and the fun really started.  We had kids and many adults who were definitely much too heavy, standing on the bucket and making their hair stand up with moms, dads, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, partners all taking pictures.   I had to move one gentleman who was breathing oxygen from a tank away from the machine.  Fortunately, no one fell off the bucket or caught on fire, and next year we’ll do it right and take a block of styrofoam for people to fall off of  to stand on.

Kylee was ready to join the Makerspace just for this… and with that shirt, she’d fit right in!

 

Blondes really do have more fun!

Blondes really do have more fun!

Even Gordon couldn't resist!

Even Gordon couldn’t resist!

 

Last year Son of MegaMax (a 3D printer built at the Milwaukee Makerspace) went to the Faire.  This year he had two companions to keep him company- an extra-beefy printer being built by Erich Zeimantz: MiniMax XY.  MMXY isn’t complete yet, but promises to be a super high quality, high speed printer.  He’ll be operational at next year’s Maker Faire.  SoM also brought his big brother, Ultra MegaMax Dominator, named that because he is ultra, mega, maximum, and he dominates.

MiniMax XY at Milwaukee Maker Faire

MiniMax XY at Milwaukee Maker Faire

 

Ultra MegaMax Dominator and Son of MegaMax at the Milwaukee Maker Faire

Ultra MegaMax Dominator and Son of MegaMax at the Milwaukee Maker Faire

UMMD and SoM rotated between the booth and the dark room where the both printers’ UV lighting and fluorescent filament was a big hit.

UMMD in the Dark Room at Milwaukee Maker Faire 2017

UMMD in the Dark Room at Milwaukee Maker Faire 2017

We had a few things besides 3D printers at the booth.  Tony brought in some Bismuth crystals to give away, and surprisingly, they didn’t all disappear in the first hour.  Tony thinks people left them because the Makerspace logo on the info board on which the crystals were sitting looked a lot like the skull and crossbones that usually indicates poison.  The crystals do have an other-worldly toxic look about them.  Oh well…

Bismuth Crystal

Bismuth Crystal

Marcin’s LED signs on the table at the booth and hanging above the entrance to the Dark Room were also very popular and hard to miss, though I managed not to take any pictures of either.  The one above the Dark Room was so bright that if you saw it, you’ve probably still got its image burned into your retinas.

Everyone involved had a great time and we’ll be there again next year with even more cool stuff!

 

 

Casting Maker Faire Ingots

For the last few months Kayla has been working on casting a pile of ingots for Maker Faire Milwaukee.  These ingots are made from scrap metal donated to the Milwaukee Makerspace by its members.  Everything from Kayla’s personal favorite, hard drive casings, to parts of tools and engines.  Its really cool to see her take trash and turn it into treasure in the form of aluminum bars.

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Be sure to watch for Kayla at Maker Faire Milwaukee pouring hot metal and helping people make stuff September 24th-25th at Wisconsin State Faire Park.

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