by Dot Cannon
Whirr. Spin. Blink.
Toss, shout, clatter, cheer.
The third annual SoCal Maker Con, at Fairplex Pomona on Saturday, was teeming with sights, sounds–and proof that “educational” doesn’t have to mean “boring”.
LED lights, 3D printing and plenty of robots were all a part of the program.
And creativity was center stage.
“This is a movement of play. Everyone here is playing,” said keynote speaker Gene Sherman.
Sherman, who is the founder and CEO of VOCADEMY, explained how his school years had led him to become a maker.
“I’m one of those human beings that couldn’t do algebra. Fortunately, there was something called shop class,” he said.
Due to those classes, and his father owning a machine shop, Sherman acquired marketable skills as a machinist, fabricator and designer.
Then, he began to see other students missing out on hands-on training. In the 1990s, schools started eliminating shop classes from their curricula.
“All these companies I used to visit would call me up and say, ‘Hey, Gene, where are the people we need?'” he said. “In the early 2000s, there were 26 million jobs going unfilled.”
This disparity led him to found VOCADEMY in 2010, as the world’s first education-focused makerspace. Currently, VOCADEMY partners with high schools and middle schools to teach hands-on maker skills. But the curriculum is open to everyone–age fourteen and up. (VOCADEMY also offers classes for kids ages eight to thirteen, according to their website.)
And this hands-on education is personalized to the individual. “The first thing we do with students is tell them to pick one subject and take a class,” Sherman said.
But VOCADEMY was just one of the ways MakerCon sparked attendees’ imagination.
Robots wheeled through the aisles, and occasionally engaged young attendees in a game.
3D printers were going throughout the day–and a couple of them had lower prices than any we’d seen before.
At her table, artist Danielle Lopez was demonstrating clay animation techniques. “Those kids were really into it!” she emailed us after the event.
Meanwhile, engineers Kay Yang and Jason Chen were teaching soldering with their creation, “Tinker the Robot” .
Young students were making light-up “Tinker the Robot” pins! (If “Tinker” looks familiar–we had the pleasure of meeting Kay and Jason in 2015. Kay shared the story of designing “Tinker” and showcased their 3D printed prototype.)
In the next aisle, we saw Sam Ontiveros–creator of Partybot!
Sam, who has his own “Maker Sam” website, had upgraded his “Partybot” robot from last year’s design.
“Partybot 2.0” is a sleeker edition, which spins, lights up various colors of LED lights, plays music and dispenses sodas. And this edition is remote-controlled!
Innovation takes flight
A major attraction for every MakerCon we’ve attended has been the drone races.
More than a few participants were on hand, preparing their aircraft for the ultimate challenge.
And once the contenders took to the air, giant screens let spectators see the racecourse from the drone’s perspective.
As always, getting to see the “Robot Throwdown” was a challenge. This is a popular event!
But we did see several of them go head-to-head–or maybe gear-to-gear.
Rising to the challenge
A highlight of the afternoon was the JPL Invention Challenge demonstration.
Student teams competed to design a device that could transport a cup, containing 8.8 ounces of water and a plastic goldfish, for two meters.
Then, the device had to pour the water AND the goldfish into a second, waiting plastic cup. The goal: to accomplish this task in the shortest amount of time, without spilling. If the goldfish fell on the floor or didn’t make it into the second cup, the team would be disqualified.
The teams came up with some imaginative solutions…
…but by the end of the competition, only one managed to avoid disqualification. Congratulations to the Arcadia High School team!
(Regional competitions are coming up, with the finals–where student teams compete against JPL employee teams–scheduled for December second.)
Not far from the main stage area, we met an exhibitor who was showcasing a brand-new innovation.
Felicia Kaefer, of Niftee Circuits, was kind enough to demonstrate this one. It’s a twenty-first century variation on the popular beanbag-toss game.
When players hit their target, a sensor causes either the hole, or the sides of the board, to light up with LED lights!
We also really liked Video4Books. Videopage creator Erwin Taganas (r) and Paul Lim, from the sales and marketing department (l), were showcasing a wedding album. But in addition to pictures, this one includes a wedding video (and plays the “Wedding March”!).
And the only word for this innovation was, “Wow”.
This is an augmented-reality sandbox at the Deezmaker booth. Creator Diego Porqueras showed us how to use it to create a topography landscape.
By running a finger through the sand, students can model different land structures. In this case, Diego could create a moat around the castle–and add inland “rivers”!
What a great day, for the third edition of SoCal Maker Con (which premiered in Pomona in 2014)! But the exciting part?
We’re just seeing the beginning.