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Producing Maker Faire Orlando

mfo-2017

Maker Faire Orlando happened the weekend of October 21st & 22nd, 2017, and I was there! The team that produces the event asked if I could be part of their team as a “Producer in Residence”, so I jumped at the chance and after a few weeks of recovering from Maker Faire Milwaukee, I was headed to Florida for my first Maker Faire down south. (I managed to miss Nashville and Pittsburgh because I had some other commitments and wasn’t sure doing four Maker Faires in four weeks was the best idea.)

mfo-synth

When I produce the Milwaukee Faire I’m part of a small team that coordinates everything. I’m usually in charge of Maker Relations as well, so that means I deal with 250 makers in some way or another. It was strange (and exciting) going into Orlando not really knowing any of their makers. (Well, even that isn’t really true, as I started browsing the list and looking up some of the makers I definitely wanted to meet.)

mfo-bmo

I arrived Wednesday afternoon and headed right to MakerFX Makerspace, which is home to the Maker Effect Foundation, which organizes Maker Faire Orlando. We took care of things there with a plan to hit the fairgrounds Thursday morning. Compared to Milwaukee, it felt like we were a little behind schedule. In Milwaukee our core crew goes on-site Tuesday morning and starts moving things in and getting set up so that we can bring in large exhibits and complex setups on Wednesday. In Orlando we were running just a bit behind, so we spent a good amount of time Thursday chalking the floor grid, dealing with signage, electrical, water, barricades, and other set-up things. More people joined the crew as time went on, and everyone was busy getting things ready.

mfo-color

Friday was the day for maker load-in, and I think that’s always a bit hectic no matter what city you’re in. It’s all about getting dozens (or hundreds) of people and exhibits in place as quickly and efficiently as possible. All at once. Does anyone have this process perfected yet? We also had a Maker Mixer Friday night and then some of us managed to get a bit of sleep before the Saturday morning madness began.

mfo-wood

Again, Orlando is different than Milwaukee. We’re both at a fairgrounds, but Milwaukee is a free event, and Orlando is a paid event. Both of those create a unique set of challenges, but both share many of the same issues. That said, while we had to scramble a number of times, the critical things got resolved quickly. (One of the biggest problems was air conditioning not working properly, or working too well. People were too hot, people were too cold. You can’t please everyone, right?) Orlando had a much larger crew than Milwaukee, and everyone had a radio with an earpiece, which made a huge difference! The best thing about helping out in Orlando was seeing how they do things, and being able to analyze the process in Milwaukee to look for improvements.

mfo-ppprs

While I was busy making a list of all the things Orlando does really well (often by just quickly snapping a phone photo of something) I also offered advice about how Milwaukee does things, and some of the problems we’ve been able to solve in the past four years. Through all of this, Chad from HackPGH was an MVP (that’s Most Valuable Producer) because he’s been a producer in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Orlando, so he’s seen a lot. He’s also served on the crew for Bay Area Maker Faire, and the National Maker Faire. I see Chad as a conduit between Maker Faires, and able to share best practices between them.

mfo-makey

Saturday was a long day, with a lot of running around dealing with various issues, but we got a short break to hang out at FamiLab in the evening. (This was my second visit, as I was there back in 2016.) Sunday in Orlando was typical of many Maker Faires I’ve been involved with. A bit more relaxed than Saturday. Most of the critical issues are dealt with by then, and you can ease back on the throttle and let things run a bit. I was really pleased to be able to take a break on Sunday and see a good amount of the exhibits. (I also handed out some Maker of Merit ribbons, which was super fun!) After the Faire ended we had to deal with load-out, which again, is not a lot of fun, and pretty hectic and stressful. (Once again, does anyone have this process perfected yet!?)

mfo-wmc

So yeah, I’ve now helped produce a Maker Faire that wasn’t in Milwaukee, or even in Wisconsin, or even in the Midwest. It was in Florida, where it’s hot and humid and they have “fire ants” and no cold water from the tap. It was awesome and amazing and different… and I loved it.

Oh, I diverted from where I thought this post was going, so I’ll be following up with a look at some of the exhibits and projects I saw.

Stay Tuned!

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The NoiseMakers (Part VII)

NoiseMaster VII

The next noisemaker in this ongoing and seemingly never-ending series is one of my favorites. This time we’ve done away with any sort of real “enclosure” and everything is just mounted on a board. We’re also using a real Arduino on this one. It’s an Arduino Nano, which you can find online for approximately $3USD nowadays. It’s quite a step up from the ATtiny85 chips used in many of the previous noisemakers.

NoiseMaster VII

Even though we moved away from an enclosure on this one, we still have to mount things, so why not model and 3D print some things? We’ve got a button and a potentiometer as our controls, and each one has a small printed part to allow for mounting to the board.

NoiseMaster VI

Again, the best thing about 3D printing in this process is you can create exactly what you need. With bits of scrap wood you’re constantly cutting and drilling to get things the right size. With designing your own parts, you make what you need. Here’s a piece that holds the button I had and has a small hole near the base to allow wires to come out.

NoiseMaster VI

This piece holds the potentiometer. It’s the correct thickness to allow the potentiometer to fit and the shaft to go through the hole. The holes for mounting screws are also the exact dimensions needed to work with the #4 screws I had. Making things fit together is about 90% of making.

NoiseMaster VII

Here’s a neat trick. Remember all those hard drives we took apart? Well, I saved all the magnets, and they’re handy to have around. Since they are attached to pieces of metal with mounting holes on them, I screwed one down to the board…

NoiseMaster VII

…and it’s perfect to hold a speaker in place. Really. That speaker ain’t going nowhere! You can pull it off, but it’s on securely enough that it takes some force, and it’s not going to fall off or get knocked off easily.

NoiseMaster VII

The Arduino Nano is on one of my Nano BOB boards. I use these to allow screw terminal connections to a Nano. (I really should get these listed on my Tindie store one of these days.) Power is provided by a Mini USB cable, and yes, there’s two 3D printed standoffs under the PCB. As a bonus, the wires used were pulled out of some phone wiring I rescued from a dumpster.

NoiseMaster VII

I like this one so much, I may be reusing some of the parts in another build I’m working on. Hopefully I can post about that in the coming weeks.

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well:

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The NoiseMakers (Part VI)

NoiseMaster VI

Once again we’re moving along in our noisemaker series and this time we’ve got a few new things going on, but again, we’ve got a device that makes noise when you press a button. This is also the first noisemaker that features an external speaker.

NoiseMaster VI

The enclosure is another simple wood affair, and there’s a push button, and we’ve also got a… gear? Yes, there’s a gear, and under the gear is a copper board which is usually used for making PCBs, but in this case it’s used as a thin surface that allows the gear to mount to the shaft of a gear motor hidden below.

NoiseMaster VI

Just like with the last noisemaker, I used some Forstner bits to hack out a large hole and then cover it with a plate. It makes the surface look nice, and the inside/bottom is a hidden mess (which is totally fine, right?) This noisemaker has one more trick up its sleeve, I mean, it would if it had a sleeve.

NoiseMaster VI

There’s no microcontroller in this one. The electronics consist of a power supply running to the button, then to the motor, and then to the speaker. That’s it. Interestingly enough, you can get some pretty cool noise happening just by running power through a motor and speaker. Since it’s a gear motor it’s already got a great whirring sound to it, so the speaker helps amplify it. And, the bonus is that by affecting the spinning of the motor, you affect the sound. (See the video below for a demo.)

NoiseMaster VI

When I started this project I had to find old speakers, and this is from a set I rescued from the trash and had to bust apart the old wooden cabinets that had way too many screws in them. (I had these sitting under my desk at work for a few months.)

NoiseMaster VI

Still, they’ve got a funky look and mounting them just took some scrap wood, plastic strapping, and a few screws. Easy speaker stand!

NoiseMaster VI

There’s a few more two-piece noisemakers coming, but this was the first one in the series I finished. Stay Tuned!

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well:

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The NoiseMakers (Part V)

NoiseMaster V

We’re moving along in the series with yet another noisemaker. This one features a control interface! Which is to say, there’s a potentiometer involved to alter the sound. This one is mainly wood with some pieces of HDPE added in. Originally I had the speaker mounted to the front, and it sort of looked like a radio, but for some reason I can’t remember, I moved the speaker to the back of the unit.

NoiseMaster V

Besides just having a button to activate the sound we’ve added a slide potentiometer. I grabbed a big pile of them from eBay years ago to have on hand, and I still have a lot of them around so I figured an audio project would be a good use for one. You may notice that the green button I used is a pretty close match to the green filament I used for 3D printing the potentiometer mounting plate. That worked out well.

NoiseMaster V

I designed the mounting plate so it could hold the potentiometer in place using two #4-40 bolts, which screw directly into the potentiometer to hold it to the plate. I then added four more mounting holes so the plate could mount to the enclosure. I kept those #4-40 for consistency. Again I’ve gone with the green PLA for the plastic parts, creating some interesting contrast between 3D printing with plastic and wood working. (And yes, there’s also blue HDPE pieces on this noisemaker.)

NoiseMaster V

Because the slide potentiometer needs to mount fairly close to the surface, and I’m using wood that is well over a 1/4″ thick, I had to chew out a bunch of the wood to make a big hole for things to work properly. I used some Forstner bits to make a rough slot in the top. Since the plate will cover it the beauty (or lack of beauty) of the slot didn’t matter much. (I’ve never really used Forstner bits in the past, but they’ve become a favorite of mine in recent years.)

NoiseMaster V

Our control interface, a button to activate the sound, and a slide potentiometer to alter the sound. I tried to position them for comfort when using two hands, though you can sort of operate it with one hand. The handle (knob?) for the potentiometer is also 3D printed, though it is covered in black Plasti Dip which gives it a nice feel when touched. I thought about making spares in case one “disappeared” during the show, but I never made more, and it did not disappear.

NoiseMaster V

The knob model had some rounded edges, and once again I’ll have to say I was pretty impressed with the Maker Select Plus at being able to handle it. It did take me a few iterations to get a knob that I liked, but this one turned out pretty well for a quick ‘n dirty project. It slid onto the potentiometer shaft very well as a press fit, and I felt pretty good that it would not have been easy to remove without some effort.

NoiseMaster V

And of course, one last hack… The screws I had were a bit too long for mounting the speaker as I did for some other noisemakers so I ended up hot gluing a white plastic puck behind the speaker to increase the distance so the screws would work. The puck was another thing I grabbed from the junk pile at work, because you never know when you’ll need some small white plastic pucks.

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well:

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The NoiseMakers (Part IV)

NoiseMaster IV

The next noisemaker in our series is a bit more sophisticated in its construction and finish. This is the first one that features painted wood, and as a nod to what one of my design instructors used to call the “El KaBong” I added a large arrow pointing towards the button that the user is meant to press.

NoiseMaster IV

This one is also a “standoff enclosure” (is there another name for it?) where there is a top and bottom surface, separated by legs (or standoffs.) The standoffs were 3D printed, and I do have to say that the MSP did a good job. The standoffs for the speakers were also printed, and those required a bit more detail to work properly…

NoiseMaster IV

You can see in the model the small indent needed for the speaker to mount. This is due to the metal from the speaker mounting holes being present, and not providing a flush surface for mounting. There’s also countersink holes designed into the bottom of the legs, to allow the screws to sit flush. I do enjoy being able to model parts that fit exact, with the holes for screws the perfect dimension. As this whole project moved forward I found myself combining wood working with 3D printing, and I liked it.

NoiseMaster IV

I think it turned out well. I didn’t really plan for the “Xmas” colors, but I had green filament loaded up, so I just went with it. The speaker is from a weird set of car speakers I got from the Hack Rack at Milwaukee Makerspace. They were encased in a plastic enclosure that was not fun to tear open, but the speakers were nice, and worth the time…

noisemaster-0230

Speaking of time, while the first few noisemakers I built were quick ‘n dirty, this one looks like it took a lot more time. At this point I was working on multiple noisemakers, so I’d still have plenty to do while paint or glue was drying, or I was waiting for parts to 3D print. Once again, this one just has an ATtiny85 making the noise. At this point I still had a pile of ATtiny boards and kept stuffing them into noisemakers. (I did branch out a bit later, though.)

NoiseMaster IV

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well: