This is a Theremin being played badly by the little robot arm on the left… (above)
…and this is the Raspberry Pi driving the robot that’s “playing” the theremin! (below)
Here are more details of Gordon’s visit, which I enjoyed reading:
M-Shed is a pretty interesting place in its own right – a nice little museum exploring some of the history of Bristol, and as someone who lived in Bristol for a few years it was nice to have a look at some of the exhibits. It does warrant another trip too, it’s quite a nice little gem of a place. I left Bristol just over 10 years ago and all that area was just in the process of being re-developed at that time and the whole area looks quite good now too. (On both sides of the floating harbour!)
So the Maker Faire is basically just a bunch of folks showing off and hopefully trying to get others enthused into their projects – there are some commercial companies sponsoring the event and it was good to see Pimoroni – makers of the Pibow case for the Raspberry Pi there and chat to the chaps, as well as a few other small companies selling components and embedded processor boards (e.g. Phoenoptix, Soldersplash) as well as Element 14 and many others. (Sponsor list here)
There were also lots of enterprising individuals, and of-course lots of non-computer/electronics makers too! Bronze casting, knitting/weaving, pottery/clay work, soft-drink making – something for absolutely everyone.
The Bristol Hackspace took up a lot of space in the middle and were demonstrating many varied and different projects – from old pen plotters to their BBC Micro connected to a Raspberry Pi sending & receiving tweets!
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