Maker Faire Orlando moves into the Central Florida Fairgrounds this weekend. The annual event elevates DIY to an art form, with locals from across the region designing and building fighting robots, elaborate costumes, bionic limbs, hand-crafted instruments, and 3D-printed versions of just about anything you can imagine.
Ian Cole is co-producer of Maker Faire Orlando. He said the event started 14 years ago as a group of friends and volunteers who came together to share ideas and build bridges in the maker community. It’s kept the same ethos but has grown exponentially, Cole said.
“These are people that make in their homes, or maybe they make in their garages, or they're part of a student group, or they're part of a local maker space, or part of a school. There’s maker communities all over Central Florida, and people like to get together and show off the crazy things they've made, learn from each other, give each other feedback,” said Cole. “It's a lot of fun.”
Some of the big draws at this year’s Maker Faire Orlando include STEM- and STEAM-based Minecraft creators, cosplayers, and robots. Lots of robots.
“Robots everywhere,” said Cole with a laugh. “We have combat robots. Those are smaller robots that get in an arena and battle. It's a favorite thing for young makers who build those as well as adults, and they take all shapes and sizes. If you want to see some live robot-on-robot combat, you can.” Cole noted that some winners in worldwide competitions have come from Central Florida and exhibited their work at Maker Faire Orlando.
Another perennial favorite of the Maker Faire is Power Racing, in which makers create and engineer kid-size vehicles. Cole calls it “the best kind of silly.”
“And so you've got an adult racing in this cart that's just barely big enough to hold their body,” said Cole. “We set up a little track and instead of putting tires or barricades out, we use these black and yellow totes filled with water. So if somebody does crash, it ends up being a little spectacular. Everybody gets sprayed, but it's a lot of fun.”
Humanitarian projects
There are also humanitarian projects among the makers this year. There’s a presentation by Limbitless, a company with beginnings at the University of Central Florida that supplies 3D-printed prosthetic limbs for children in need. Other 3D-printer makers will also be present to craft a newly-available kind of toddler mobility trainer for free, for families who can’t afford one.
“Assistive devices can be very expensive, and so a community released open-source plans where anyone with a 3D printer can print one of these, and then register, and meet up with a family that needs it and give it to that family,” said Cole. “So as a way to educate more people that this is happening, we have a stage panel this weekend where they'll be assembling one of them live.”
Cole wants to give more people an opportunity to get involved.
“The maker community is very diverse,” Cole said, “but one of the things that I love about the community is a desire to, not only learn and share the learning, but also to do better and make the world better through that.”
