Source: Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
The 5th annual Maker Faire Eindhoven closed out September (29 & 30) on a lovely autumn weekend in the heart of the city’s industrial arts district. Over three days, some 15,000 people came out to explore a diverse variety of makers nestled into the nooks and crannies of the old Philips Philite (Bakelite) factory along Strijp-S. The area—which by the 1970s was a self-sufficient industrial park employing some 10,000 people—has now been redeveloped as a full fledged arts district, full of live/work lofts, workshops, businesses and restaurants and the rambling Klokgebouw where the Maker Faire was held. If the Philips slogan was once, “From sand to customer’s hand,” the makers who congregated here were writing new stories about the production and distribution of goods in the circular economy, as well as showing off inventions ranging from the quirky to the high tech.
Here’s the first official video of the event.
Eindhoven Burghermeester (Mayor) John Jorritsma met with his counterpart from the largest gathering of In-Moov robots yet to kick off the celebrations. These individually made 3-D printed robots are in town for the concurrent exhibition Robot Love and spent the weekend engaging the public. InMoov creator Gaël Langevin and Greg Perry, the brains behind the MyRobotLab software commonly used, spoke on both days, discussing the growing open source robotics community. You can see the InMoov post and pictures on the event here.
Robotics teams figured prominently in the event, including the Team Rembrandts, who have taken to heart the slogan proudly on display across the event: “If things get complicated, bring in the Dutch.” There are only four First Robotics team in The Netherlands and this team travels to the US to compete, recently winning several categories at regional events that will take them to the FIRST Championship competition in Detroit next year. In football-crazed Holland it was unsurprising to find football playing robots. VDL Robot Sports, sponsored by Philips, engaged audiences throughout the weekend. Kids lined up to test their goal keeping prowess against the robots.
Indeed, Eindhoven has a strong tradition of football playing robots: The local Tech United team–comprised of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology–which won the RoboCup World Championship this year was a highlight. Here’s a video from Tech United’s World RoboCup showing of the soccerbots vs. humans.
There were also balloon battles using Raspberry Pi!
On the other end of the robot spectrum were the mechanical, larger-than-life, hand-formed steel and hydraulically powered creations of Freerk Wieringa. Images are better than words at describing the scale and sheer power of this collection of his works, including MAD REX specifically commissioned for Maker Faire Eindhoven. Some attendees really got into it!
The Crazy Parade was a big hit for its second year out.
Ami6 by EXOOT even gives out candy! Here’s a video of the action!
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