In the meanwhile, I was at PyCon 2014 in Montreal as a co-instructor and TA for PiDoorbell. More about it another day but today was Maker Faire. No pics in this post - I mean business. :P A quick report on my exploration follows.
Interesting products for developers:
1. spark core - wifi on board (but no mesh), compatible with arduino
2. pinoccio - home automation kit of boards - one with wifi and rest with atmel's mesh
3. ply90 - which also made my favorites list last year
4. NASA's phonesat - an android phone, extra batteries and a couple of add-on sensors make this cubesat work
5. electric imp - an IoT (Internet of Things) solution that boasts of - wait for it - a cloud
6. Qfusion - a programmable invention platform currently being designed and seeking funding
Apart from this, I saw plain old FPGA being re-branded as 'hardware you can program as opposed to software that runs sequentially line by line'.
Among the products on exhibition were a few that caught my attention:
1. Braigo - a braille printer using Lego Mindstorms and very little else, created by Shubham Banerjee, a 12 year old from Santa Clara
2. inet2DVR - a home automation system built on top of a security recorder
3. Lil Bot - a robot for kids to learn programming on, with a web interface much like Scratch's except for hardware i/o blocks
And did I mention the robots? :) All this just in the expo hall. I did not venture into the Startup Space.
Some observations: 3d printers were not the major attractions. Infact, I only saw a booth or two with printers on display, unlike the endless aisles of 2013. The open expo hall layout this year was far superior to last time's tiny booths. And believe it or not, I can swear I saw a bigger crowd today than before. Maker Faire's strategy of affordable family tickets for Sunday is cleary a huge success. According to this, 2013 had 44% first-time attendees and half of all attending with children. The event is an incredible experience where tech and fun coexist in the real sense, endorsed heavily by enthusiastic participation by families with young children. How young you ask? Sitting next to me on Caltrain was a mom with a 2.5 month old, returning from the Faire. I kid you not! That's Maker Faire's true success, if you ask me.
