Learning | Engineering Word of the Day

Last month, I had a wonderful time at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2014.  Maker Faire is nicknamed "the biggest show-and-tell on earth" with good reason; wherever one may wander on the site, there will be a person excited to explain whatever you see, like upcycled furniture, or armor for small animals.

I went with my husband (an electrical engineer) and son (an Electrical Engineering major.) This was their fourth year attending, and my third. It's hard to avoid catching their enthusiasm when they spot some cool thing, like a mechanical device for calculating square roots, or some new innovation in three-dimensional printing.

My guys were busy looking at some little teeny tiny thing I didn't understand, so I wandered over to a booth with furniture that was clearly Steampunk-inspired.  I admired the display, and asked a few questions about the uses of various pieces, and how they were made. 

I was surprised when the man in the booth asked if I was an engineer.  I laughed and replied that I was surrounded by engineers, but I was not one. An engineer himself, he told me about his wife's experience working as an office assistant for a bunch of engineers. She has developed a coping mechanism: identifying an "Engineering Word of the Day."

I love the idea so much, I'm tempted to steal it. From time to time (but certainly not every day) I will share an engineering or science word with you, just for fun. You never know when it might be useful.

Here's a word I learned from my father: ullage. Sometimes called headspace, this is the unfilled portion of a container. Some space needs to be there, to allow for expansion of the liquid.

External Tank ET-138 Rolls Out at Michoud Assembly Facility from Marshall Space FlightCenter's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved. 

My father was an aerospace engineer; at one point, his job was calculating precisely how much fuel could be loaded into the enormous external tank used for Space Shuttle launches. He had the responsibility of making sure the ullage was as small as possible.

If you regret missing Maker Faire 2014, try to save time around the third weekend in May...and watch this blog for news.

Learning | The Parasol Protectorate.

Steampunk fans will enjoy reading Gail Carriger's books.

I learned about Ms. Carriger's books from a customer, who wholeheartedly recommended the Parasol Protectorate Series, also known as the Alexia Tarabotti Series, to me.  

Soulless, Book 1 of the Parasol Protectorate Series

Quite honestly, she had me at "steampunk," but I was delighted when I started reading Soulless, the first book in the series. Carriger sets the series in a historical world that might have existed, if Victorian Society was interwoven with vampires, werewolves, ghosts and human beings. Queen Victoria has appointed a Shadow Council to oversee supernatural matters, and there is a Bureau of Unnatural Registry which keeps track of all of the werewolves and vampires in England. There are also plenty of interesting steam-powered machines used for detection, transportation, communication and warfare. (Including deadly mechanical ladybugs and porcupines!)  Alexia's parasol is her primary means of protection--and there are plenty of people who wish to see her dead in this series. History buffs will enjoy comparing the fantasy setting with the history/technology of the real world at the same time.

Alexia Tarabotti seems like a Jane Austen character. She would be a formidable force even without her preternatural status (in terms of this series, that means she was born without a soul; her touch will turn immortals human.) 

She keeps up with the latest scientific theory and technological developments. She's not afraid to protect herself...which explains why the first book opens on a scene where she accidentally killed a vampire, when she simply wanted to eat a few treacle tarts. 

Her mother and half-sisters are frivolous, mean-spirited women who are preoccupied with everything Alexia finds least interesting: who's engaged to whom, fashion, etc. 

Her best friend, Ivy, has horrible taste in hats; she may prone to malapropisms like, "persona au gratin," but she is not as foolish as she appears. 

I almost forgot to mention the great romance that transforms Miss Tarabotti into Lady Maccon by the end of the first book. If you've ever wondered about the challenges of marrying an earl who is a werewolf, look no further!

The Parasol Protectorate Series will appeal to fans of Jane Austen, P. G. Wodehouse, and Elizabeth Peters.  


Gail Carriger is writing more series to delight her fans:

Custard Protocol Series (sorry, you'll have to go to Link+ for this one)

Finishing School Series is a series for teens, set in the same fantasy Victorian Era as The Parasol Protectorate.

Soulless is the name of a manga series based on the Parasol Protectorate Series. I haven't seen it yet, but I will be looking for it.

She's Crafty | East Bay Mini Maker Faire

We went on a field trip! A fun-filled, creative feast-for-the-eyes, whirlwind of a craft adventure and we've put together a field report.

Craft Adventure Field Report 001
Event: East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2013
Where: Park Day School and Studio One Art Center in Oakland, California.
Participants: Kaye, Malia, and Selena.

The East Bay Mini Maker Faire is modeled after a larger event known simply as the Maker Faire. Both celebrate creativity, innovation, learning and sharing. And while the Mini Maker Faire is named so because it is a fraction of the size a Maker Faire can be, let me tell ya - it's not really very mini. From flying robots and walking pods to walls decorated with fabiric-cover hangers and makers teaching how to screen print, this event had it all!

To get and in-depth account of what a Maker Faire is all about check out Lori's amazing blog posts, Maker Faire, Part 1 and Maker Faire, Part 2.

Now for the reports...

Malia: Back Entrance Overload and a Nerdy Derby

Set on the campus of Park Day School in Oakland and the adjoining grounds of Studio One Art Center, The East Bay Mini Maker Faire was nestled inside a residential area. We parked at a separate school campus down a small car-lined street and were already confronted with the cool and wonderous.

Murals made by students at Emerson Elementary

Surprisingly, we still had not glimpsed anything of the actual Faire itself except for the busy streets and streams of people walking towards something cool--you could see it on their faces. As we walked down the street and came around a corner we could see why: following heads turned toward the sky we saw a flying robot buzzing overhead, we heard cardboard boxes crashing and the screams of triumph as kids played Angry Birds IRL (in real life), merchandise calling my name under white canopies, colorful pennant flags, aquariums full of water plants...and this was the back entrance!

We got our little maps out and left it up to my niece what to do first. Selena is 18, but like her aunt she likes to make anything vaguely sword like so when she saw Duct Tape Swords we navigated the campus through a few wrong and right turns, down an incredibly packed area known as Food Truck Alley, and found the craft tables over-populated with munchkins half our size. We watched for a bit and planned to come back later.



Then we spotted the Nerdy Derby and watched kids push their hand made cars with fun names like, "Car" and "Death Wave" down tracks built on top of playground slides.


Kaye: Lady of Glass

One of the things I really enjoyed was watching a lady making beautiful beads from molten glass. She had lots of glass rods, each one a different color, laid out on her work-table. She wore special glasses to protect her eyes from the glare of the torch she had set in a clamp directly in front of her; and, with a hand to each side, she twirled the glass rod in the flame with one hand while holding a mandrel with hot glass wrapped around it in the other. Then, every once in a while, she would take the hot glass and mold it against a metal plate she had close by. It was like magic! A shape was taking form! I wish I could have stayed longer to see what the final bead would look like. But, Malia and Selena beckoned me on to explore other wonders. One day I hope to do what that lady had been doing...she had made it look so easy, I just knew I could do it too. I know that lots of things look easy but aren't, but I want to try it anyway. Just once.

Malia: Glovetopus and FIRE!

After scanning the crowd for a bit I spotted a sign for the Glovetopus. I've made a stuffed glove creature before but never a Glovetopus so I had to check it out. That's when we crossed a courtyard area dominated by a tall contraption with what I thought were arms capable of spinning and tanks of propane...ohmygosh, that's a thing capable of FIRE! We waited while the guy in a top hat and his buddy fiddled with nobs, grabbed a sledge hammer and asked for people to line up. The first kid came into the ring and hit a wooden lever much like one you would find at a carnival. Without knowing what to expect, the large burst of fire and heat was surprising but very, very cool!

For now, this is the end of our field report. However, we have so much more about the East Bay Mini Maker Faire to share, so stay tuned and stay crafty!

Kaye and Malia

Learning | Maker Faire 2013, Part 2

The 2013 Bay Area Maker Faire is now history. Here are a few impressions I took away from the Saturday I went there:

Hands-on opportunities:

This is one of the best things about Maker Faire. There are so many things to do, for people of all ages.

I saw some LED lamps that were encased in a slimy, squishy gel material. Of course, I had to squeeze and poke them, to see what they were like.

The developer of the Open Clock Project let me touch the screen of the clock to set the alarm and view different features.

One booth gave instructions for modifying your Roomba, so that you can control it when you are away from home, either on the internet, or via smartphone.  They touted a Roomba Chat Room.  Now, I know this was intended as a forum for Roomba hackers to share ideas and troubleshoot, but my son and I couldn't help smiling, thinking about Roombas all over the world communicating. It's not hard to imagine them making posts like, "Look at this mess. How am I expected to clean up juice?" or "The cat has been sitting on me ALL DAY. #justpulloutmybatteriesnow"

Trends:

Sharing resources!

3D printers were everywhere, just like last year, but visitors did not hang around to watch the printing process nearly so much.  They were more interested in the materials offered for printing, and services from companies that will take your file and print 3D objects for a fee.

Likewise, more hackerspaces are offering memberships.  One company is trying to coordinate sharing of tools between hackerspaces.  Hackerspaces, also known as hack labs or maker spaces, are places where people gather to share tools, space and other resources, to make things. 

Kickstarter was a buzzword this year.  Entrepreneurs hope their displays at the Maker Faire will generate enough interest for people to invest in their companies.  Business cards, more often than not, have a kickstarter.com ID on them, as well as a url for the company's own website.

I noticed more companies using smartphones and tablets to operate their automated creations. Although most gadgets seemed to incorporate Arduino microcontrollers, the new Raspberry Pi single-board computer from the United Kingdom made a strong debut.

Cool things to watch:

A show with Mentos and hundreds of Coke Zero bottles, timed to go off with music, mimicking the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas. These guys explain the scientific principles  and chemical reactions that produce great amounts of fizz, before they dazzle you with the actual performance.

A life-size mousetrap game, and many other Rube Goldberg-like machines.

People dancing on stilts--with people in robot costumes.

A concert powered by people riding stationary bicycles. There seemed to be no end to the number of people who wanted to sit down and pedal to keep it going.

Flaming sculptures.

The tesla coil concert. This was in a darkened hall; the music was mostly heavy metal. I particularly enjoyed the rendition of the Doctor Who theme.

A car covered with dancing plastic fish and lobsters, programmed to move in time to music. 

All Bay Area Maker Faire 2013 pictures courtesy of Windell Oskay's Photostream on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

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Whenever I visit the Maker Faire, I think of people like Simon Rodia, who spent the better part of his life building the structures that came to be known as the Watts Towers.  You can read about him in two colorful non-fiction children's books:

Dianna Hutts Aston's Dream Something Big: The Story of the Watts Towers

Patricia Zelver's The Wonderful Towers of Watts. This particular book was a bedtime favorite for one of my sons.

I also think of the late author E. L. Konigsberg's  novel, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place. This is a coming-of-age story about Margaret Rose Kane. She returns from a dismal time at summer camp to find that the amazing, Watts Tower-like structures in her uncles' backyard are in danger of being torn down. 

Learning | Maker Faire, Part I

My family discovered the Bay Area Maker Faire a few years ago. I was so intrigued to hear my husband and teenage son rave about the 2011 event, that I decided to go with them in 2012. It was even bigger and better than they described.  

They had told me about the robots, and narrowly missing seeing Mythbusters star Adam Savage. (We listened to Adam Savage's presentation in 2012. He appeared in an Indiana Jones hat, and told a compelling story of a boy who liked to make his own props for imaginary play, then had a career in creating special effects for movies--which led to his phenomenal success on the Mythbusters television show.)

I expected to see robots everywhere, but I didn't expect to walk into a room full of R2-D2 replicas! Apparently, the cute little droid from Star Wars is one of the most popular subjects for amateur projects.

It seemed like everywhere I turned, there were people touting their 3-D printers, and talking about things to make with Arduino, a microcontroller that can be used for multiple purposes.  SSJCPL carries a title called Making Things Talk.  It's full of instructions for Arduino-based projects, like these:

• make a mat that tells you when your cat is sitting on it
• make a stuffed monkey talk
• make a simple electronic ping pong game.  

This book is published by the company that organizes the Maker Faire; it's affiliated with a magazine called Make:.

If you like do-it-yourself electronics projects, you might consider checking out some books from the Evil Genius Series. The publisher of this series had a booth at Maker Faire last year; one of the authors was there to autograph books. 

There are so many different kinds of creations and inventions at Maker Faire, that I am having trouble condensing it all into one blog post. One section is devoted to recycled objects and clothing--making something new out of something old. There are accessories and jewelry. Another section is devoted to growing food. And then there are the glowing sharks that seem to soar through the darkness in one pavilion. Families with children really seemed to enjoy the hands-on activities.  I was able to extract DNA from a strawberry at one table! There was an area where kids could learn (hands-on) all about how locks, keys and tumblers work.

One large section of the Faire is devoted to Steampunk.  This is a cultural movement that embraces science fiction concepts like time travel; it is both futuristic and anachronistic. I think it's really fun, but then, I'm a devoted Doctor Who fan. 1000 Steampunk Creations is loaded with pictures of contraptions, art, decor and fashion in the genre.  

The Maker Faire will be at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds on May 18-19, 2013.  Our family purchased our tickets months ago. Maybe I'll see you there.