Eliana Malykin, 5, drops a ball into the “Chaos Machine” — a series of tubes, tracks and pulleys for kids to play with — at the Maker Faire on Sunday at Loehmann’s Plaza in Durham.
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DURHAM -- Take parts of a hamfest, craft fair, computer security conference and science fair. Mix them together and you have a Maker Faire. Sanctioned by MAKE magazine but organized locally, a Maker Faire brings together inventors and creators of all kinds of materials. The first one held in North Carolina was at Loehmann's Plaza in Durham on Sunday.
"You get robotics people who talk to textile people," said organizer John Danforth, and people comparing notes on topics from honey bees to boiling freon. The event was held in conjunction with the ShopBot Jamboree, which he knows through Techshop, a local do-it-yourself shop. Without advertising, news of the Maker Faire spread by word of mouth. Hundreds of people had come within a few hours of the opening to see the 44 "makers" explain what they do.
Volunteer Tom Georgoulias said there were homemade projects, electronics and even a 3-D printer.
"A lot of communities that exist online are actually seeing each other face to face," he said.
Danforth said their unofficial catch phrase is: "This is where you share your lore."
The 3-D printer, explained Maker Faire staffer Drew Nelson, is a Replicating Rapid Prototype Machine that is designed to make itself and other plastic parts.
A few exhibitors away were the founders of the Mid Atlantic Battle Group. Charles Morello and Brian Alexander met as engineering students at Virginia Tech, and created the group for enthusiasts of remote control warships. Not just building them, but battling them. The small-scale replica ships fire ball bearing cannonballs at each other for meetings on the open sea, er, private property ponds. They fight to destroy, but sunken ships are salvaged and repaired to fight another day.
Hulls are made from fiberglass or plywood. Motors are electric, so there is no chance of a fuel leak. Cannons are powered by the same carbon dioxide used for paintball.
Alexander says he does it for the engineering challenge -- the fun of trying to make it work.
"As a kid I loved battleships. What little boy doesn't dream about his ships fighting each other on the water?" he said.
Group members live in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. For details, visit mabg.org.
At the Triangle Arduino Hackers Club table, Dante Cassanego of Durham explained Arduino, which is open-source hardware and software that allows people to simply control electronics. He showed how a microcontroller -- a really, really mini computer -- could be used to control a matrix of LED lights by remote.
"It's a way for you to write software and physically interact -- to use electronics as a way to make more interesting and interactive pieces," Cassanego said. The group, which meets in Carrboro, just formed in February. Those interested are often programmers, electrical engineers and students, he said.
Visitors also learned about bees, habitats for bats, designing your own fabric, leather bookbinding and modern quilting.
James Starrette of Raleigh, a woodworker, said the Maker Faire was bigger than he thought it would be.
"I think people need to do stuff like this," he said. "If we're so dependent on stores, we forget how to do anything. What would we do without stores?"
