Let’s talk about pencils. I always take notes in pencil. I like the flexibility to change things and the neatness of not having crossed-out words (I’ll take the simplicity of erasers over whiteout any day).
I usually use mechanical pencils. Wooden pencils are a thing of the past for me.
But wooden pencils are the ones used to create art, and apparently in ways besides smearing graphite all over paper. Check out Dalton Ghetti's work:
In the brain, the hippocampus is the center for memory. This is where memories are first consolidated and stored, where associations are formed and activation of a few cells in the pattern can evoke the whole memory.
The Latin root for the word hippocampus is sea horse.
So, naturally:
The brain, languages, and puns (notice the brain coral?) all together in one beautiful shirt? I would've bought this, but unfortunately it didn't make it past Honorable Mention status on Woot.
Other coolness included a video game table with 6 sets of roller ball + 4 buttons surrounding the screen. There was a tank vs. tank game, as well as 6-player (two teams of 3) Pong. It was quite fun to toy around with, and play against the random people who happened to be there at the same time.
Next, we went back outside, got some food (I haven't had a churro in a long time!), and walked around out there before it got too cold. There were multiple guys on stilts, and a couple themed areas (I caught a Renaissance vibe from one and a Steampunk vibe from the other). They had workshops for soldering, and providers of all the supplies and services you might need in your future making.
There was a pool, where apparently some battleships were set to battle in a while (like BattleBots, but in water!). The Western Warship Combat Club also put up a sign next to the bleachers deeming it a low-velocity projectile area. A waiver wristband was required to sit there (despite the line of frames of bulletproof glass separating pool and bleachers). We didn't think we would have time, so we missed out on the battle.
Picture from the WWCC website linked above - those ships seem to handle pretty well too.
At least 4 different strange-looking vehicles drove past us. The ones I remember are the guy sitting on top of and riding what looked like a giant pillbug, a wagon that looked as though it should be pulled by horses once the metal frame was covered with upholstery, except that it appeared to have neither horses nor driver, but only passengers and a camera in the front. There was an old-looking car, and a little kid driving a go-kart with a solar panel on top and a sign on the front saying "Science Wiz." Oh, and of course, the muffin lady. She was riding in a giant plush muffin.
Not my pic. Photo credit to Willivolt on Flickr.
Then we went into the Expo Hall, where there was too much stuff to remember. Near the entrance was a pneumatic calliope, whistling its merry way through multiple tunes.
Other things that pop to mind are of course the Pulse pen, the Utilikilts (why use a utility belt when you can have a whole utility kilt!), the cute little solar-powered DIY cars that had no battery or on-off switch so they would just sit under the light until they were charged, then spontaneously zoom off in whatever direction they were pointed until they ran out of power and built up their charge again, and the sewing lessons. MAKE magazine also had some tables with things made from the instructions in the magazine (and possibly some workshops earlier in the day). We only got halfway through that hall and completely missed the Ok Go performance because it was almost time to go. That was regrettable, since they apparently performed underwater...
That would've been a nice end to the day, but it's okay. I got to spend the day checking out cool, artistic, random, fun, cute, and techie things. Most had multiple of those characteristics, and some were even all of the above. If you are ever in the vicinity of a Maker Faire, I suggest you go check it out. Spend a whimsical day in a whimsical way. Maybe you'll see a reflection of yourself as a child.
Previously on The Scientist in the Yellow Hat: I went to Maker Faire 2010, and saw musical lightning, a pen full of R2-D2s, and much more!
Still within the confines of Fiesta Hall, we next ran into a life-height mechanical giraffe with funny glowing eyes, a busily chewing mouth, waggling ears, and a neck that moved up and down. These makers were also selling a (much more miniature) robotic giraffe kit. This one was a little longer than the palm of your hand, mostly plastic, yellow, and kind of cute. The cool thing was that this battery-powered figure you could build yourself could walk. Simple and sweet, it seemed a nice gift for a mechanically-inclined little girl or boy (no, I'm not being paid to advertise!). I apologize for the background sound and the unfortunate lack of waggling ears in the video, but hey, it blinks!
The Cardboard Institute of Technology had a cool tunnel in the corner. It was at least 10 ft. tall and 2-3 people wide. Well, at the beginning anyway. After passing through the cardboard city, the only way to exit was on your hands and knees, scrambling through like a kid in the McDonalds (or Chuck E. Cheese, which I prefer) playplace.
Then my mom saw these Playaflies chandeliers. They were actually made to mount on the back of a bike, but she really liked the idea and the fact that it was DIY (do it yourself). They involve nothing more than LEDs, Ping-pong balls, wires, and a little soldering ability, all of which we have or can easily acquire. Yet they certainly are pretty in the dark, especially when moving.
There was also a digital graffiti wall, to which all the kids were attracted like mosquitoes in India to my poor, defenseless body. The controller was shaped like a small can of spray paint, and you could apparently have up to 10 of them working on the wall at one, though I only glimpsed one being wielded by a child of 7 years or so.
Maker Faire 2010 occurred at the San Mateo Expo Center. Now, San Mateo is a little suburb on the Peninsula, about 1/3 of the way from San Francisco to San Jose. Nothing ever happens here. Except for this. The Bay Area Maker Faire. This was the original, the first, and people still flock to it in droves despite the $25 ticket ($20 if you buy it at one of the participating local businesses - yay Whole Foods!).
We got there around 1pm, and parking was ridiculous. The city of San Mateo had set out parking enforcement officers, who very kindly gave us maps to 7 nearby parking lots where we were allowed to park mostly for free. Those maps had everything - the location of the railroad tracks, the Expo Center, the extra parking lots, the names of important streets...everything except the lines that represented the streets. Umm...what? You mean you're not going to show me one of the things I need to understand where I am on the map? It was okay for me since I knew where the K-mart was, but for anyone from out of town, it would've been a bit difficult.
At any rate, once we got inside, we started in the Fiesta Hall, where our attention was drawn to the guy in the chain mail/Faraday cage suit playing with the lightning to the music. Maybe that's not quite the right way to put it, since it was actually the lightning that was playing the music. ArcAttack's musical Tesla coil performance was...dare I say, electrifying?
We then walked around a little, looking at some battlebot type robots. One was named Ethel, and appeared in her magazine article to breath fire. Apparently, she also likes music and dancing and having a good time. Well, judging by the scandalous way she was dressed, I suppose that was not unexpected.
But I believe Ethel can hold her own if any cretins decide that the way she is dressed makes it her fault for tempting them and think that they have to succumb to their own supposedly unstoppable impulses. She's packing some firepower (which they did not demonstrate while I was there, fortunately or unfortunately).
Pictures from the Team K.I.S.S. website - all credit goes to the builders, especially because I totally forgot to take my own photos here.
Nearby was a booth with the people who make Pixar stuff. There was a replica of the steering wheel-eye robot from Wall-E, as well as a Pixar logo, complete with real-life lamp. The cage next door held a multitude of R2-D2s. I got some pictures and videos of them, because they were ultra-cute, though sadly not real. They were being remote-controlled by their owners, who were lounging about in the R2-D2 corral.
I'm not a hardcore Star Wars fan, but I think Artoo is one of the most recognizable figures George Lucas created - and I doubt there are more than a few people who don't like cute little robots that beep and whistle and can only be understood by Luke Skywalker.
Anyways, I've hardly gotten through the first bit, so stay tuned for more posts about the Maker Faire!
Until the creativity in the apartment has been revived (which usually tends to happen around finals time as we search for ways to procrastinate), this will be the last post in this series. I always save the best for last, whether they be long or short or smart or tart. There are certainly good ones in the other posts, but these, in addition to being the best, are also misfits that didn't really work under the other categories.
A desperate plea. I'm not sure whether it is asking for world peace or inner peace, but who wouldn't want either?
You have to open your mind to new experiences, or you will never grow from the person you are.
This was my epic (by magnetic poetry standards) poem. I'm quite proud of it, though I found it puzzling that the word "would" was nowhere to be found.
And finally, a bit of advice: Become a person you can be proud of, regardless of how anyone else feels.
Sometimes we felt like being funny. Sometimes we had to spit out those pithy little sayings that sound great but are hard to actually apply to life. Then again, within the limitations of these words, there was only so much advice we could give.
Don't just back off, please. Let us know what's going on.
This was written for our summer roommate, who was having a little trouble letting go of an old flame.
For the rest of us, this is probably the best advice. After all:
Although food and water probably should have made it onto that list. Eh, maybe they fall under luck.
But if those aren't enough for you, then you should come ask us in person:
When 3 roommates (plus one boyfriend who is here quite often) majoring in various areas of biology collide with a green/nature-themed magnetic poetry set, the result is not the Higgs boson, but still pretty nerdy. The fridge has seen its fair share of these geeky sentences.
They put the words in our mouths...err, hands. I mean seriously, why else would you give people photo + synthesis in a green-themed set?
Yes, I would certainly hope so. Or we wouldn't have much left.
Oh no, all that classification stuff...it's like Bio 1B all over again.
While this one is not as directly true, you can make it so by eating the cheese (but not my Brie!).
And finally, they gave us the words for all the others, but you have to be really nerdy to make your own bio terms...
Thank you G. for bringing us back to the molecular and cell side of biology. I like meiosis more than botany.
The Scientist in the Yellow Hat, now with new and improved features! Or a singular feature, anyway:
I've decided I will post some magnetic pearls of wisdom from our refrigerator each week for the next couple weeks (and then wait until I build up a large pile of pictures again, lather, rinse, repeat).
At the beginning of last summer, my roommate and I went to Games of Berkeley - the game store in downtown Berkeley. While there, we decided to get a magnetic poetry kit for our plain, boring fridge. Now, most of the kits also have plain white word magnets, but there were a few color-themed sets.
We immediately ruled out pink, which left green and blue. My favorite color is blue, while hers is green, so after asking the store clerk which color he liked (green) and taking into consideration the color of the furniture (blue), we flipped a coin. She won. Ah well. I guess I like green too.
Here are some of our original creations from that first month. We'll start with the slightly more poetic (yes, my camera's phone is myopic and cannot focus well close up):
Thinking in three dimensions can be tricky. For whatever evolutionary/social/biological reason, spatial visualization tends to be easier for males than females.
As a bio major, the main thing I visualize in 3d is molecular structure, for proteins and organic chemistry reactions.
But artists do much more. Kumi Yamashita brings people out of the shadows in ways you’d never suspect. Matthew Albanese creates entire worlds – and then shows us how he does it.
