Orlando Mini Maker Faire Just a Few Weeks Away

Posted on in Events

“Orlando Mini Maker Faire is a community-organized, family-friendly celebration featuring local do-it-yourself science and technology, art, rockets, robots, crafts, music, hands-on-activities, and more. It’s an event where people show what they are making and share what they are learning.”

This exciting event is just over two weeks away! On Saturday, October 5th, 2013, a slew of people will descend on the Orlando Science Center (both inside and outside) to experience and be inspired by the amazingly creative people we have here in Central Florida.

The first Orlando Mini Maker Faire in 2012 was very well attended and I’m sure this one will be a blowout success as well. I’m going to be there on the 4th floor of the Science Center, with my Giant Marionette Stickperson, and with some experimental stuff running on the Science on a Sphere, a large white globe with four projectors aimed at it that create an interactive spherical display.

Normally, the Sphere shows various images and animations, most of which have something to do with Earth’s weather or the planets. My friend and fellow artist/technologist Sergio Mora and I were at the Orlando Science Center yesterday for a few hours, playing with the Sphere to see what interesting and interactive things we could do with it.

We got our laptops and some Processing sketches talking to the Sphere via its lightweight Automation Commands protocol over the network. We were able to animate and draw lines and curves with the “Annotation” feature, and control rotation with a Leap Motion Controller. A big thanks to Michael King for upgrading the Science on a Sphere system over the last week or so and getting us in there to play with it during his very busy day.

If you’re in the area and free, come out to the Faire and see what we and others are up to! It will be fun. Visit Maker Faire Orlando for all the details.