Table of Contents

• Shreveport-Bossier Maker Faire on April 13

• On Tariffs

  • I have no idea what impact tariffs will have on ma …

  • If you or your business are impacted by the tariff …

• My Trip to Trenton

• Robots on the Way

Shreveport-Bossier Maker Faire on April 13

Joel Leonard called me last night to tell me about two things. One was that the team behind Shreveport-Bossier Maker Faire participated in the Defender Air Show last weekend at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The event had about 200,000 people on site. The team were there to promote their Maker Faire, which is Saturday, April 12th. “We had a B-52 hangar,” he told me.

The other thing he wanted to tell me about was Jason Quail and his animatronic contraptions, including the Shopping Cart above, Norbert the giraffe and a remote-controlled octupus driving a tricycle, shown below.

While Jason walks around with the octopus, he holds a Starbucks cup in his hand that conceals the controls. Joel explained that it’s actually a fake hand holding the cup while Jason’s actual hand is underneath operating the controls inside the cup.

Joel told me that when Jason arrived at the Air Force Base with his big shopping cart, he began driving it toward the entrance. One MP noticed and got worried and then several more joined him. They formed a line to block the cart’s approach but Jason just drove it around them and it kept going. The MP’s started “freaking out” according to Joel, who was laughing remembering the incident. One of the MP’s ran up to Jason and he told them that “he was on the program.” He drove it on to the tarmac and everyone took notice. Joel was happy that they were able to hand out postcards and promote their upcoming event.

Jason, whose red mohawk is recognizable anywhere, can be found on YouTube and on Instagram as tinkering_guy. He works at the Amazeum in Bentonville, Arkansas. He’s a featured maker at the Shreveport-Bossier Maker Faire.

Maker Faire Philly happens this Saturday at the Cherry Street Pier.

On Tariffs

I have no idea what impact tariffs will have on makers and maker businesses but I don’t expect it to be positive. Certainly, with electronics and 3D printing as well as many other machines, so much comes from Asia.

If you or your business are impacted by the tariffs, I’d like to hear about it. Also, if you see new opportunities because of the tariffs, and wanted to share that information, please let me know.

My Trip to Trenton

I didn’t see Trenton’s famous bridge sign on my trip to Trenton last week. It’s a tribute to America’s manufacturing past, sadly.

Last Saturday, I spoke at TCF, once known as the Trenton Computer Festival because it was located in Trenton. Now it goes by TCF and it is located at TCNJ — The College of New Jersey, which used to be known as Trenton State College. Got all that?

TCF started in 1976 and has run continuously since then with one year off for Covid. Its two founders passed away within recent years.  Dr. Allen Katz, a pioneer in satellite communications, was a professor of EECS at the college for 50 years and passed away last year.  Katz’s wife, daughter and grandchildren (triplets) were at the event. His wife told me that her husband and I would have really enjoyed each other. Katz had figured out how to bounce signals off the moon and had a large dish in his backyard. His wife said that Katz call out to her to go outside and re-orient it as the moon moved in the night sky. (More on Dr. Katz.)

Rebecca, one of the long-time organizers whose job is in computer forensics, said that TCF used to have quite a large flea market associated with it.  “At the end of show, the exhibitors would often throw away what they couldn’t sell and a bunch of people would show up to go dumpster-diving and get things they wanted.”

Larry Pearlstein, an EECS professor at TCNJ, headed up TCF this year and I appreciated the invitation to speak to the audience. I will be putting up a recording of my talk on the Make:cast podcast.

I enjoyed seeing Rick Anderson of FUBAR Labs in NJ. He gave a good talk on the many projects they do at their makerspace. He is also the organizer of Sussex County Maker Faire in October at a rural farm. FUBAR organized the combat robots (GSCRL). I watched this young girl compete alongside her father but she was crestfallen when her robot was attacked and it began to fall apart.

Robots on the Way

We’ve almost finished our next issue on humanoid robots. It goes to the printer early next week. One article I worked on was an interview with Gael Langevin, the creator of the InMoov robot. He’s been working on how to give the robot facial expressions. He’s created a silicone skin for the face. The skin is attached to 17 motors in the head. The motors are controlled by AI to create an expression appropriate for the robot’s response.

See you next week!

Make Things is a weekly newsletter for the Maker community from Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co

I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas, projects or news items about the maker community. Email me - [email protected].