Phew! After one very full day at the Maker Faire in Austin, my boys and I are beat. It still feels like summer here in Austin, and the combination of the non-stop Maker action and the Texas heat has us all lying around like blobs at this point. But before I fall into my well-deserved slumber, here are a few of my photos from the Faire. (More can be found on my Austin Maker Faire flickr set, there are some really great ones from Laughing Squid, and many more by searching on the MakerFaire tag).
If possible, this Maker Faire event seemed to have even more family-friendly exhibits and kid stuff than its California counterpart. There was certainly no shortage of things for me and the geeklings to see, do, play with, and build. I used the cop-out parenting technique of "we’ll come back to this [insert super cool exhibit here] later" to get my 5-year-old to move along with us, and naturally he didn’t forget any of these and on the ride home was questioning why we hadn’t returned to the playdoh table, the tire swing playground, and the art golf course (for the fifth time). Clearly, I’ll have to make good on my promises tomorrow.
A quick survey finds that my 5-year-old’s favorite thing today was the art golf course by Because We Can, my 12-year-old was most taken with the Robot Group’s trampoline-based video game system, and we all loved the Diet Coke Mentos performance by the guys from eepybird.com. I’m a little too overwhelmed to pick a personal favorite, Maker Faire is pretty much the definition of sensory overload 🙂
