Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “A quick tour of Maker Faire Tulsa”.
I’Ve just gotten to Maker Faire Tulsa. This is their 11th year going and after a quick glance around, it looks like it’s gon na be really cool. I’D like to take you on a tour. This is going to be kind of a fast tour. I’M not gon na really stop at at the booths for very long or else it would take hours, but we’ll just take a quick run around the event and get you a feel for what it’s like from what I’ve seen. They’Ve really nailed it.
I’M I’m really impressed with what they’re doing here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, okay, starting here at the opening gate. Here we can see they really filled this building up. There’S a lot going on. They told me there’s kind of like Old World crafts over there and New World crafts over here. So let’s start with the old, let’s go over here to the old stuff and take a peek around we’ll just get a feel for what’s going on here. So we have the merch, of course, if you’re you’re gon na need some cool Maker Faire swag and in this middle area. Here we have nerdy Derby and these Sphero Obstacle Course races and all kinds of activities going on where people can build the cars that they raise down the track there and steer these Sphero robots around and some other cool stuff.
There’S a race going on right. Now. All right, so one thing that stands out about this fair is: they have tons and tons of Hands-On activities. I’M not exactly sure what’s going on at this table here, but I see people making something and they’ve got straws and pipe cleaners and sand.
Oh, it looks like they’re building a boat they’re, doing the the paddle boat races and the moat, where they make their own little boat, and then they race it very cool love it. Here we have some vendors that have brought their artwork here, but even the vendors are doing Hands-On activities where you can paint your own, make your own jewelry stuff like that, and we have some baked goods and fudge, of course, baked goods and Foods along this wall And back here we have more artists. This is kind of the artist area where you can see some of the incredible artwork that the Tulsa Community is coming together and making beautiful stuff really cool projects here, and we squeeze around here to the very back, the very back corner. We can see more artwork back here.
We have stained glass, people are actually making some stained glass back here in the corner being taught how to do the whole process and making cool stuff while making some cardboard structures here burn some energy with the kiddos, while the adults learn about amateur radio. In this mobile amateur radio unit, let’s come around here see what else we’ve got some people doing even more artwork here, beautiful stuff, corocraft Leave Your Mark, I’m not sure exactly what this is. But people are writing something down. Writing a message and leaving it on the wall for others to read all kinds of messages here: people just leaving a little bit a little note for someone else and over here we have people learning how to make. We have some jewelry on display, but people learning how to make their own as well. It’S one of the great things about Maker Faire, of course, is the Hands-On activities. Not only do you come and get inspired, but hopefully you learn how to make some of this stuff on your own. You can see here some lampwork hot glass work happening now. Of course, this isn’t as Hands-On as some of the other stuff, because it takes years of skill to learn, but you get to see how it’s done and the kinds of stuff they’re producing right here on site, very cool stuff, More arts and crafts back here. We’Re still in the traditional area of what’s going on, lace, work, beautiful, beautiful lace, work over here book scanning, some woodwork, a wide variety of stuff.
Actually, let’s look at this lace work again, some beautiful examples of lace, work up here and they’re, showing people how it’s done just beautiful stuff, beautiful stuff. Now, let’s squeeze over here through the crowd and see what else we can find. This is reinvented magazine. That’S showing people just how to use power tools. We have a pedal powered spin art from the bike club, and here we can see much better, the um, the area where people are actually building things like the nerdy derby cars that they will then race on that track up there in the boats. I suppose I see some boats here as well now we’re kind of transitioning over to the uh, the new world side, where we’re gon na get more into the tech and 3D printing and stuff.
Here we have some computers and old electronics people are taking apart. This is always a popular, a popular area where people can take apart all of these different electronics and see what’s inside them, free maker, Fair I’ve been to that, has that it’s just it’s been swamped. The local Electrical Co-Op is here teaching valuable lessons about electricity safety. The electrical co-ops usually have these great displays to teach about safety around like Fallen power, lines and stuff like that, and then, of course, we have some Maker Faire Necessities like the 5.0 first here with an incredible display, they really are doing a great job. They always show up and really wow the crowds. Thank you. If you’re interested in some of the cosplay Star Wars based cosplay, the 501st is definitely something you should look up. There’S also the rebel Legion all right, and then we have the sca which does um. Does their the society for Creative anachronism and they do like medieval role play as well? Let’S see what we have over here behind us, so we don’t miss anything.
We have a rocket club now. This X-Wing here that is taller than me, is actually a rocket see how big this thing is. That’S actually a rocket, that’s pretty wild. This is from the Tulsa rocketry Club check them out. There see some of the rocket internals here all right.
Let’S keep moving showing these kids how to build some little air powered Rockets here Pro Image 3D is showing people how they can do 3D scanning. You can see here that they are letting people play with the scanners and they’ve actually got. If you look up there, that’s an active scan of this head here. They were showing people in real time how that works, yeah and uh. So we’ve got um some 3D scans and 3D prints from them here, let’s see what’s over here before we skip this area and we’ve got spycon showing some retro gear, retro Tech and memorabilia. We got more 3D prints. This is uh one of the sponsors here showing off some of their stuff. We’Re gon na sneak around the back here as we creep around the back of the booths to get over here to more of them, we’ll learn about code ninjas, where they teach people how to code from scratch very basic coding from the ground up gamified often. So it’s more interesting to young kids and we have uh first robotics, showing examples of the robots that people learn about whenever they join the first program in school. So we can see here some examples of those robots out here in the open, as well as the obstacle course that they would use to teach the students to do various tasks.
And then this is the first Lego League doing some activities for the kiddos. Now this is one that I found really interesting. I haven’t seen this at any other Affairs and this is miniature painting, so we have tabletop Miniatures being painted here on site.
You can get a miniature and paint it they’ll set it up here to dry, and you can pick it up later. They’Ll teach you how to do it. This is very cool. I’M trying to find a name or something you can look up. Okgames.Com! That’S how you can find more information okaygames.com here we’re just going to take a quick peek at this sign to get the info perfect okgames.com! That’S where you can find that information.
I love what they’re doing that was really cool Contender, Esports they’re, a Competitive Gaming facility. There’S a whole chain of them across the country. You can go there in game competitively. They have tournaments and stuff like that, they’re here, showing off showing the kids what’s up over here behind us over here behind us, we have some poly maker who’s showing off their 3D printing filament.
So of course they have a bunch of examples. Printer is going to show what their filament is like. Let’S go through here now, this group, I didn’t catch their name yet, but they have some really impressive: 3D prints and scale models. It’S all about tabletop gaming, really cool stuff. The Tulsa rock and mineral Society really brought a big cool display here, where they have, of course, displays of some of the stuff people make some educational displays. But what I really love is that if we come around here around all just the displays, we can see that they’re actually showing people how to carve them, how to polish them, how to shape them all kinds of Hands-On activities.
Oh, we got. Some smoke rings happening over here in the distance all right. Let’S keep going this way. We have some combat robotics back here in the corner now they’re in the middle of bouts right now, so they’re getting ready just to getting their robots ready to go here. We can see kind of a gallery of some of the boss that they’ve been using and then over. Here is the pit.
This is where all the different teams work on their robots and it’s always fun to walk around and look and see like some of the repairs that they’re doing and some of the stuff they’ve had to do to keep their Bots going here. We are back at the uh stone, cutting very cool stuff, absolutely love the Hands-On aspect of it. Foreign here we have, the ever popular smoke rings, always a delight and then back into robotics, first robotics over here again, and here they have the big Bots to really show off the the variation between you know, the small all the way down to the Lego and Then up to these big giant Bots, so you can really get a feel for what’s going on. This looks like it’s. Maybe a T-shirt cannon that shoots t-shirts into the crowd at first robotics events, just incredibly cool. That’S it! That’S a quick tour of Maker Faire Tulsa 11 years in and they’re killing it.
If you want to try to find a Maker Faire near you go to makerfair.com um, you know there was so much stuff here. There were a few things I probably missed personally. This painting of the Miniatures is something I’ve never seen at a Maker Faire before, and so I was really impressed to see that oh here’s like a CNC machine, I missed it just goes to show. You can’t see everything at a Maker Faire at a glance. You really got to go around multiple times.
I hope you enjoyed the tour. You should definitely check them out. Go to makerfair.com to find a Maker Faire near you and I’ll see you on the next article. .