Growing up in New York (and not CT), I didn’t have a chance to experience the Eli Whitney Museum as a child, so I was in for a real treat. The museum serves as a workshop for all sorts of hands-on projects, in addition to having a lot of neat historic relics. All-in-all, a great place to spend some time.
Museum Director Bill Brown kicked off the evening with a brief history the museum and the art of “making” as it existed in a different age. While the materials, medium and projects may be different, the ingenuity, curiosity, and pure interest in tinkering is timeless.
Bill ended his talk by making a favorite project of his own, on the spot: the rubber band powered car, and setting it off to the races! A shaky, full motion shot, was only fitting :-)
Here’s what they usually look like fully finished and decorated:
We had a few neat demonstrations from Alex, Mike, and Rob. Alex brought in and talked about his crackerbox amp, which he built from parts that he salvaged from an old TV!
Mike talked a little about his experience tinkering and building the boards over in the Liquidware shop, and Rob (below) gave a demo of the Drawdio project (as well as a box full of other projects!).
Then we all split up into a mingling/project show-and-tell session, which is part of what makes meetups so much fun, and is usually where I get a lot of ideas for new stuff to work on.
And I just thought this one was really cool to see live - the RC Carduino that Raj set up on his own server:
All good, fun stuff, and a great excuse to hang out with other makers! If you’re in the area and want to be a part of the next one (tentatively for November 11), let me know and I’ll be sure to send you a reminder when it gets closer – jhuynh at gmail
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