The Dublin Maker Faire

On Saturday (15th July), I was lucky enough to attend Ireland’s first Maker Faire at Trinity College, Dublin.  It was a fantastic and incredibly inspiring event.  For those of you who don’t know what a Maker Faire is, it is ‘a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.  It’s a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning.’ So there!

Some of the exhibits on display included:

• Scalexercise, from Buildbrighton, that uses exercise bikes to power a Scalextrix track. 
• Breandan Lane brought along his SteamPunk carousel, which I thought was rather scary looking, and the product of a warped mind.  But he more than made up for it with his simply outstanding musical rocket, which was a centre of attention for the entire day:
• The simply amazing Lego Faire that was built by Presentation School Warrenmount. For me, a recovering Lego addict, this was the highlight of the Faire:

There was a lot more happening at the faire, including an underwater ROV built from everyday parts and controlled using an Arduino, the 14ft drum from Fuinneamh, and loads more!

Personally, I found the faire incredibly inspiring.  Particularly as I have recently signed up as a STEM Ambassador to try and promote STEM subjects in local schools.  I’ll be especially interested in encourage coding in schools, and I hope to mentor a school taking part in this year’s Lego League, hosted by W5 at the Odyssey.  To prepare for this, I will be playing researching Lego MindStorm and the Raspberry Pi over the summer.