' Maker Faire '

‘ Maker Faire ’

• P.Natarajan.

It is now almost a month since our arriving U.S. We find time running on high speed race as we build a schedule of visiting places, people and participating in events. Sunday, the 29 July 2018 saw us taking part in ‘Detroit Maker Faire’ at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. The exhibition (Dearborn MI ) was open on July 28-29, 2018. ' Maker Faire ' is a gathering of tech enthusiasts, hobbyists, crafters, educators, tinkerers, commercial exhibitors and so on. All of these ‘makers’ come to ‘ Maker Faire’ and show what they have made , and to share what they have learned. Maker Faire was launched in 2016 in the Bay Area and in New York and later round the globe. About 200000 people annually visit the two flagship ‘Maker Faire’ places.

GE Digital is one of the proud participants, others include Henry Ford Motor Company, 3D Printing, Mathematica, Young Makers and Coding (Robotics) Ham Radio, Camp Pencil Point,  Viva Amiga, Modern Quilts, Tesla Coil Quartet, to mention a few.  The motivation for us to visit the Maker Fairer was GE Digital where our son works in Detroit MI.     

GE Digital, being a genius at play, exhibited a stall of  Virtual Reality on VIVE plus Aviation Technology, and related technological areas. Software development for VR System is their expertise or speciality.

We observed visitors to GE Digital Stall stood in a long queue to wear the Vive head system to see and wonder how much virtual reality show it was. The show carried the visitors on move across the blue ocean where number of Wind Mills creating a 12 MW power appeared as a virtual reality. There were such number of themes creating a wonderful display providing a memorable feast to the eyes with a refresher rate of 90 HZ and 110 degree field view and 1080 X 1200 pixels revolution for each eye.

Virtual Reality headset uses room scale tracking technology allowing the user to move in 3D space and use motion-tracked hand held controllers to interact with the environment. Access is available to an exclusive support line and a deluxe auto strap. A front facing camera allows the user to observe the surroundings without removing the head gear. The software used identifies the moving or static objects in the room and acts as a part of a chaperone by creating a virtual wall display to shield the user from any obstacles.

Vive base stations, which serve as lighthouse tracking system, consist of 2 black boxes and create a 360 degrees of virtual space to a 15 feet by 15 feet radius.

As we were about to leave the pavilion, good news was received that GE Digital was adjusted as the best stall in Make Faire and my son being one of the key players in the ‘ VR Show’ was doubly happy for the sustained efforts put in by their team. A piece of information I may say here was that our grandson (8 years old ) sat in the 3D printing stall and got his name ‘ NEEL’ printed with the help of the coaches in the stall.

A special mention needs to be made about the exhibition by Ford Motor company  for the fantastic row of cars aligned in rows where they had drawn the attention of the visitors by boldly displaying the special security devices built into the ‘  LINCOLN ’ limousines for use by different Presidents of United States of America from time to time.

There were other attractions in the ‘Maker Faire’ like magic show, circus events,’ Fireball Emission’ through tall chimneys erected specially for letting the fire and smoke high into the sky.This game was played by a group of children by throwing a ball at the same time targeting the center of concentric circles placed in front of them, As the ball touched the individual targets, ‘a ball of fire’ emanated from the respective chimney with a thud while the boys applauded for the success of their combined group actions.  

We moved to the lunch area earmarked for the Makers and had a refreshing lunch with soup, pizza, salad and a soft drink. We left home by 9am. and it was almost 6pm. when we returned home. A good day and a good outcome to share with my friends.

pn