What?
Maker Faire Delft
Van der Burghweg 1
2628 CS Delft
When?
4 & 5 June
What time?
11.00 a.m to 5 p.m
Tickets
10.00 euro, for adults
6.00 euro, 6 up to and included 17 jaar
Children up to and included 5 jaar free
It's Whitsun weekend and we have a super fun outing planned for today, we're going to the Maker Faire Delft. We have already seen a video online, so the expectations of the mini-monsters are high. We can now say we are not disappointed, it was super cool! On arrival we immediately saw Pac Man and the Ghosts, so funny!
Kids were allowed to sit in the Pac Man cart or Ghost and off they went. The ghosts went hunting to gobble up Pac Man, so they raced after Pac Man as fast as they could. He had to quickly get away but that was not as easy as it seemed! Gradually, a more and more enthusiastic audience came to watch. It was very funny!
At the entrance we are given a wristband and then we can go in. The first thing Puk wants to do is sticking led-lights in a grid at Pick-N-Place. If you do it the right way, the lights are turned on. You can make beautiful coloured light figures with it, or write your name in lights, for example. Puk makes the moon.
A little further on a workshop Learning programming in Minecraft was going on, it was pretty full! The kids who participated were a bit older than our mini-monsters, it is quite difficult for their age. So we stay for a while to see how things were going on the laptops and then we move on.
At the TU Delft vehicles have been built that can drive themselves. They do a contest with them, for secondary school students: the First Tech Challenge. It was not a race but more of a mission parcour that the vehicles had to go through under their own power and thus earn points. Logically, the vehicle with the most points would win. Unfortunately it didn't go quite as it should the first time, but we'll come back later and watch again later. There is so much to see and do here!
We arrive at a booth with all kinds of robots. There is a swing with a small robot on it, that - just like a real child - moves the swing with its legs. So cute! Amongst others there are also a rabbit, a crab and a snake to play with. They are called Lego Mindstorms, and are build with Lego and artificial intelligence.
You can use a controller to play with a robot of your choice. Puk chooses the crab. The animals move exactly like real ones! The crab can walk sideways, the snake shoots forward while sliding back and forth, the rabbit even jumps off the table, (although that wasn't the intention) ;))
It is understandable that the robots are a great success with all kids, from little to large! A little further on we see a bigger robot, it's Dogger! Dogger is a 3D printed robot, which was developed by Fabio Boekel, a student at the TU. His ultimate goal is to create a well-running robot dog. You can see how that works on a screen and the real Dogger is there too, in person!
Our next stop is at KNEX, which is a construction like Lego but different, that we also have at home and at school. We build fun things with it at home, but what we see here is really beautiful! The lady at the booth tells us that you can easily assemble and disassemble the large structures by building in separate sections, and attach the sections with connection pins, a clever tip!
There is also a KNEX drawing robot, the kids may flip the switch themselves and then it starts drawing. It makes the most intricate and beautiful figures and the robot will continue for as long as you want. If you like your drawing you can stop the robot yourself, by flipping the switch back. And also very nice, you can take your drawing home. Thank you very much, Madam!
We also make a quick stop at the booth of the Lunar Zebro, because the mini-monsters love the moon, the universe and space travel very much. De Lunar Zebro is the smallest and lightest rover yet! Compare it with the Curiosity for example, which has the size of a big car. The Lunar Zebro is an amazing, super cool and very interesting project. Besides it looks very cute, with it's C-shaped legs. We love it!
Now you might be thinking, that's cute, snazzie is coming up with a weekend day trip that's already over! We can't go anymore, we have to wait until next year. But then we have good news for you, on September 24 & 25 this year you can go to the Makers Faire Eindhoven! With perhaps not exactly the projects we have seen today, but with at least as interesting other cool inventions.
If you go we maybe might even meet you there!