During the days of 19, 20 and 21 of September me and my colleagues from eLab Hackerspace, had the amazing opportunity to participate on the first Maker Faire in Portugal.
The event hosted 100 maker projects and 10.000 visitors on "Pavilhão do Conhecimento". Organized by Make magazine, Sapo another tech partners, we submited our projects to the ultimate stress test - The People's Judgement! It was interesting receive feedback from the public about our projects, in major part very good comments and also improvement suggestions, in some cases possible deal offers.
The climate between makers was awesome and it was nice environment to learn new things, some of them cutting edge technologies and some of our projects were awarded.
In the event me and my great friend João Duarte presented a workshop about Kicad - Printed Circuit Design Software, where we explained and demonstrate in exactly 1 hour, the steps to design a simple PCB in Kicad.
Let's check some of eLab's projects.
This is my personal project called Self Balancing Robot and equilibrates in two wheels with the help of an accelerometer + gyroscope by the same principles of a segway [Cover in another post].
The next project build by João Duarte is the awarded and sensation project from the Maker Faire - Tesla Coil.
Impressive by noise and sparks, its impossible not stop and look for this master piece, made with a corona beer capacitor, cooper wires and tubes, and high voltage transformer.
The next friend, Mário Saleiro was awarded by the number of projects taken to the Maker Faire. Mario was the first true maker in my EE course showing everybody how to break the boundary between theory and real creations. One project build by Mario and Bruna Carmo is Infantes and is a revolutionary approach for teaching children about programming and general knowledge games.
As a maker, Mário built his own CNC milling machine and the construction details are fantastic.
This is Miro a computer vision investigation bot.
Here we can see this custom made mechanical keyboard, with usb ports and internal memory.
This project made by top Engineer Nelson Neves present us a home automation feature - Intel Window. This window is controlled by a intuitive web interface controls a servo motor with gears brackets and box printed in 3D tech.
The next project made by Gonçalo Pereira, finished and presented by Álvaro is - The Spot Welder.
Made with a microwave transformer, this project welds together 2 pieces of metal as we can see in the next image.
The next project built by the RF expert Emído is - The Optical Communicator, and modulates and transmits data by led.
To finish here is a photo of eLab Hackerspace team at the Faire.
