My six year old son and I attended the maker faire. It was nonstop fascination and engagement for both of us all day. He loved the Lego Jeep, building squishy circuits with play-doh, 10mm LEDs and DC motors, building switches with aluminum, foam core, and alligator clips. When he asked, "Dad, can we build circuits and a robot too?" I got a huge smile on my face and felt really great.
The Arduino controlled fire breathing machines scared the hell out of him and he wouldn't go anywhere near them no matter how much I tried to convince him that they were safe (you could feel a heat blast from them and they were loud).
We watched the future engineers of America compete with their TETRIX robots, moving bowling balls and picking up racquet balls.
Overall the Maker Faire gave me confidence that in the U.S. there are still a lot of smart inventors shaping the future. Not everyone is tapped out watching "American Idle" blaming red states and blue states.
3D printers were everywhere and fun to watch. I have no use for one, but suddenly I want to build one. Luckily the price tags north of $1500 brought me back to reality.
We bought a few inexpensive electronic projects that we look forward to building and plan on attending both days next year. It was crowded, but the people running the booths were so nice and knowledgable, there was so much there to spark the imagination that it was worth it.
You can do one better and submit a project with your son. Non-commercial projects that are accepted get in for free. (I'm a grown up and I can't tell you how proud it made me feel to present this year) :)
I can't wait until my daughter (who is 4) is a bit older. I already have a host of things for us to do. She already owns a WoWee robot, and sees me code every day. I got her a broken laptop so she can sit besides me and "code". Soon...
Love it! There are some great web resources now for young coders in case you weren't already aware. Check out codeacademy, mykidcancode, and of course - scratch. In fact, I think Google has their own block programming initiative that they were showing at the maker faire.
The Arduino controlled fire breathing machines scared the hell out of him and he wouldn't go anywhere near them no matter how much I tried to convince him that they were safe (you could feel a heat blast from them and they were loud).
We watched the future engineers of America compete with their TETRIX robots, moving bowling balls and picking up racquet balls.
Overall the Maker Faire gave me confidence that in the U.S. there are still a lot of smart inventors shaping the future. Not everyone is tapped out watching "American Idle" blaming red states and blue states.
3D printers were everywhere and fun to watch. I have no use for one, but suddenly I want to build one. Luckily the price tags north of $1500 brought me back to reality.
We bought a few inexpensive electronic projects that we look forward to building and plan on attending both days next year. It was crowded, but the people running the booths were so nice and knowledgable, there was so much there to spark the imagination that it was worth it.