Silver Spring Mini Maker Faire (September 29, 2013)

For many months I’ve heard via Facebook and other websites about something called a Maker Faire where all sorts of cool DIY stuff is demonstrated. I envied cities like New York City and San Francisco for hosting large Maker Faires and I found myself wishing I could check those events out but I couldn’t due to tight finances.

But then I saw a notice in The Washington Post about a Mini Maker Faire that would be held for one day in Silver Spring so I decided to go for it since it was a fairly short drive from my home and it was free admission. The Silver Spring Mini Maker Faire billed itself as the first official Maker Faire in the DC area and, given the huge response to this, I’m sure there will be more events like this in the future.

For those who have never been to a Maker Faire, here is a brief description of what it was like. The Silver Spring Mini Maker Faire had agencies from the local universities, the federal government, and government contractors provide demonstrations of the latest in high technology like computers and robots. For those who aren’t hi-tech geeks, there were plenty of craft demonstrations of things like making your own wool felt and weaving strands of LED lights in clothes. There was even a cooking demonstration. Basically it was an event that had something for everyone no matter what your personal interests are.

The day was warm, but not too hot, with low humidity so it was the perfect day for an event like that. It was very crowded though. I wasn’t able to try any of the hands-on exhibits because of the throngs of eager kids who pushed their way to the front of the tables and were grabbing things to try. I only stayed an hour because it was very crowded. But it was a pretty good event nonetheless even if I saw some demonstrations given by both NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab that all reminded me of my ex-husband. (He works at NASA and a few years ago he made an ill-fated attempt at getting a Ph.D. through the University of Maryland’s HCI Lab until he decided to drop out.) Here are some photos I took with my smartphone of the event.

I only got one new thing at the Silver Spring Mini Maker Faire. One of the Mini Maker Faire’s sponsors, Google, gave away free recyclable shopping bags in a variety of colors. I got the green bag.