Outside Event 3 - Maker Faire

I'm not sure if I am a bit jaded by the cool stuff we do every day at Mind 2 Matter, or if the Maker Faire was less impressive than the first time around.

I went for the first time last spring and was just in awe of EVERYTHING. This year didn't really have taht same appeal. I felt sort of like "been there, done that" or really "been there, saw that" as a lot of the exhibitors were the same as last year.

There were some changes and they weren't necessarily for the best. The SF Bazaar was moved to the back of the event and in its place was the Start Up Tent. The Start Up Tent was a fraction of the size that the bazaar was last year and this year's bazaar was a fraction of the size as well. There were the usual giant mouse trap, battle pond, etc., and the jr maker's area.

It seems as though the prices for space were jacked way up, as there were fewer exhibitors and a LOT of shared booths.

I did a lot of walking on Saturday (I walked almost 6 miles according to my fitbit) but didn't catch any of the presentations (last year there were some really great talks about sustainability and food sourcing). In all honesty, I felt like I had seen everything after only a few hours and just wandered about re-examining things. I did approach a few of the newer 3D printing companies and asked them to pitch me as I am part of a print on demand company. None of them could really give me any reason to purchase their machines aside from look at the print quality. In looking at the print quality, we get the same quality off our "Fakerbots" so that didn't really sell me. Also, the bulk of the companies there were selling a fairly small build area (usually less than 6'x6'x6') and a high price tag ($2k +). Sure they looked nice sitting on your desktop, but 6" cubed isn't really much to work with.

Ultimaker. A nice looking printer, but not really worth the price tag. 

There was one company that was selling a paste extruder kit that you can add to your existing 3D printer (I am pretty sure we've got one on it's way). They were actually printing with silicone caulking onsite, which makes for a far more flexible print than the current flexible filaments out there.

Of course I checked out some of the subtractive manufacturing companies out there and this desktop CNC mill from Carbide3D was pretty impressive. It was amazingly quiet and did some really detailed and intricate milling work. 

I always check out the laser cutter booths, and the pricing still hasn't come down quite enough for me to purchase one. It's on my list, but at this point our focus is 3D printing and casting, so I can't justify it as a business purchase :) 

The second day I was tasked with getting scanned by every company that offered scanning and get .stl files sent to us to check out the scan quality. I don't have any of the files yet (and some of the companies would not provide access to the file), but I will be completing a review of the scanning for other purposes once I get access to the files.