Gold Coast MakerCamp 1

I've been to a MakerCamp yesterday. It was organised by Gold Coast TechSpace in Southport.

TechSpace is a place for enthusiasts to meet twice a week and work on hobby projects. You can work every evening or night if you want - every full member has a 24 hour access.

If you work remotely, but you don't want to, or can't, work from home, Gold Coast TechSpace offers cubicles for $200 a month, see co-working.

So, what's a MakerCamp? It's a "show and tell" for people who make things, primarily involving electronics, often based on Arduino or RaspberryPi, but there was also Pavel who wants to build a catapult, and is looking for people who can help him build a Roman village in Australia.

Steve Dalton showed this low-cost plotter:

And a Lego Mindstorms kit set up and programmed to solve Rubik cube:

Neil, Rod (Skip), and Chris are working on a tiggy game for little 3D printed robots.

Anna Gerber who participates in The Edge showed her LilyPad creations. I liked an octopus-like doll that moves its arms and head when somebody is talking to it. 

Phil showed a display made of 240 flexible waterproof RGB LEDs, which you buy by a meter.

If you want to start with electronics a good place are the kits made by freetronics.

When you are making something, you may need custom parts, and a 3D printer like this printerbot comes handy:

3D printers are getting cheaper, more precise, and more versatile. The cost of material for making a small plastic part is about $1. You buy material per kg in what looks like wire on a spool, and for a certain nozzle diameter, this one had a 0.5mm nozzle, you get a certain number of meters of wire per 1 kg. The instructions that are sent to the printer show the total number of meters of wire that you will need. Jorge from Rabbit + Cocoon Arts Precint was telling me that 3D printers can now print metal parts, and big parts for planes. Amazing!