Archives for the month of: July, 2014
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Welcome to Maker Faire Detroit!
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Meet the H20 Robot, which can be programmed to paint any line drawing that you can turn into a pdf. This one worked on a portrait of Frankenstein’s monster.
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Here’s an example of a pattern the little monkey on the H20 Robot could draw: Marilyn Monroe. But on Sunday, it drew Frankenstein’s monster.
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Dad gets a look at the pattern.
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Speaking of droids, a robotics group created an amazing display of Star Wars-inspired robots inside The Henry Ford museum.
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The above Jawa was just a front man for a collective that builds Star Wars-inspired robots.
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How salacious!
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Not quite R2-D2, but close enough for me!
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Poor R5-D4 may not have gotten to go home with Luke and Uncle Owen, but what would you rather do? Get blown up on a Y-wing bomber at the Battle of the Death Star, or lead a quiet life on a moisture farm?
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One of the highlights of Maker Faire Detroit was a human-size re-creation of the Mousetrap board game I remember being incredibly frustrated by in my childhood. Not sure why they called it a “Life-size Mousetrap,” since it was human-size, but anything that recaptures the fun of the old board game is fine with me.
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Don’t ask me to explain how each of the parts of the Life-size Mousetrap works. I found the accordion music before they set off the trap to be a pleasant distraction from my wondering what the function of each bit was.
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It must have taken days for the crew to set up the Life-size Mousetrap, a massive reproduction of the old board game Mousetrap, which itself was inspired by Rube Goldberg’s convoluted inventions.
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Levers are important, but so is the muscle to crank the gears and pulleys into place.
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And here we have a few adjustments on a little boat that was one of the last in the chain of simple machines in the trap.
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Resetting the Life-size Mousetrap involved a lot of climbing, ratcheting, and tugging of mechanical devices.
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Not sure if this was a for-real sponsor or not, but the creators of the Life-size Mousetrap made sure to mention it to everybody.
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What happens when you drop Mentos into hot bottles of Coca-Cola? Well, they didn’t call it the Coke Zero Mentos Spectacular for nothing!
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Preparing to drop a Mentos candy into a bottle of Coke Zero. For some reason, Coke Zero works best. And though we all like it cold, hot soda has the most energy and will yield the most spectacular geysers.
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That’s right! Through the miracle of nucleation, you, too, can drop Mentos into Coke Zero and send raging foam 20 feet into the air. Need proof? See the next few photos.
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Success!
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We were a good 40 feet from the stage, but the wind blew Coke Zero foam into our faces. Fortunately, the rain washed away the residue.
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More success!
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Be sure to wear protective goggles!
Michael Fuhlhage, Ph.D. 