The Most Mind-Boggling Toys From Sydney’s Maker Faire: The Science Fair For Grown-Ups

Brought to you by Intel. Partnering with Maker Faire, Intel Inside brings exciting experiences outside.

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“It’s so annoying, everybody likes science now but I totally liked science before it was a thing.” This verbal atrocity came from a girl at the table next to me at a Brunswick cafe a few months ago, and while it’s usually the kind of thing that makes me sometimes pray for spontaneous human combustion, she kind of had a point.

With podcasts like RadioLab topping download lists and rebel astrophysicists like Neil deGrasse Tyson getting into knockdown-dragout public debates with the likes of Stephen Colbert, science and its eternal dance partner invention, has taken a rightful place back among the realms of public interest. It even has its own Burning Man.

Maker Faire is basically a big science fair for grown ups, and has been celebrating the resurgence in innovation and scientific design all over the world since 2006 before making its way to Sydney for the first time last year. This month they’re back on tour with more (job stealing) robots, friendly drones and remote controlled 3-D printers.

Sydney’s iteration is just one of 119 world-wide, independently produced Mini Maker Faires activating across our shiny blue dot this year. Science and engineering groupies, tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, teenage science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors across Tokyo, Rome, Shenzhen, Oslo and New York meeting up and bathing in the nerdy, nerdy light of their sudden glory — like Parramatta Eels fans in 1998. Let’s take a closer look at our top three picks from the line up.

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The Magic Invisible Art Canvas

RealSense 3D depth-sensing cameras, which use the same technologies our adorable grannies had a crack at when we sent them to Vivid, allow you to doodle mid-air, like a half-crazed Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, and immediately see it realised on screen. They also allow you to measure the distance between different things by taking a picture of it, which has astonishing implications for all kinds of things. Construction, engineering, design — even working out how to move a couch down a flight of stairs.

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A Molecular Biology Laboratory For The Average Schmo

Biofoundry is a communal science lab for what they call “citizen scientists” or to the uninitiated, “Muggles”. This not-for-profit group want to democratise science by smashing the prohibitive financial and technological entry barrier to science education and research training, and to that end they run courses that help to demystify science and make it more accessible to the averageperson who otherwise might be too unsure to dip their toes in.

They run courses for curious amateurs, help start-ups realise their concepts, develop the practical skills of undergraduate science students and encourage people to just come in and use their incredible expensive resources for their own harebrained experiments. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

You never know you need a molecular biology laboratory until you really do, like spare undies at a music festival. Tinkering seriously encouraged.

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How Do 3D Printers Work And What Do They Want From Us?

Sure, we were all super excited when 3D printers exploded into the collective consciousness, but what have they done for us lately? Well, plenty actually.

From troubling, fully working machine guns to low-cost human prosthetic parts which are revolutionising countries wracked with landmines, 3D printing is something most people have heard of but few understand.

Watch these spirally little wonders at work and ask their owners all the important questions, like: “Are you a wizard?”, and: “Can you please make me an exact copy of Kim Kardashian’s bottom to wear over my own?”

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Where: Powerhouse Museum

When: 15 – 16 August

Tickets: Here

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Feature image via Sydney Mini Maker Faire/Facebook. Photograph by Daniel Green.