Scenes from the faire

Ernest Reid
Science & Technology Editor
If you went to the Toronto Comics Arts Festival on May 7 and 8, you might have missed the Mini Maker Faire at the Evergreen Brickworks in the Don Valley. Here’s a slice of what was at the DIY science and technology festival:

Student Talent
Ashley Lewis, a third-year student at Ryerson, displayed her “Obama Board,” a reprogrammed electric keyboard. Instead of musical notes, each key was remapped to produce Barack Obama’s voice; pressing different keys produced different words from his inauguration speech.
Students from the Critical Making lab from University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information also displayed their interactive projects. Wearable computing was a major theme of the research. One display, “Soundstreaming”, brings online live-streaming into real life. Users wear devices that transmit “identity songs” to others for listening, and vice versa.
 
Different Hacker Communities All in One Place
Hacking communities and “makerspaces” from around North America came together for the weekend, meeting face-to-face and exchanging ideas. In attendance were Foulab from Montréal, Québec; Buffalo Lab from Buffalo, New York and Think|Haus from Hamilton, Ontario,  among others. Each makerspace explained to visitors why all consumers should tinker with technology in the same  way children play with toys.
Families Trying to Keep Up with Their Children
Many families attended the Faire on Mother’s Day weekend and it was fascinating seeing young children interact with one-of-a-kind DIY toys. However, not everything was hands-on for them. Normand Fullum makes wooden telescopes using 18^th century techniques, at a cost of thousands of dollars each. He seemed understandably protective of his delicate instrument art pieces.