Tag Archives: maker faire

Maker Faire Bay Area 2016, best one yet!

Every kid should make something and exhibit at Maker Faire!

Maker Faire Bay Area is one of the few events where kids of all ages get to show off their creations to a large audience and get a chance to meet makers, inventors and leaders from all over the globe. And this year it was bigger and better!

For Omkar (a huge fan of Mythbusters), the absolute highlight of the event was meeting Adam Savage!

The biggest shout out for Omkar’s project came from none other than Massimo Banzi, the co-founder of Arduino, who talked about Omkar and O Watch in his annual State of Arduino address (at 15:30 in this video)!

 

The best part of Maker Faire is meeting old maker friends and making new ones, not to mention experiencing all the cool exhibits and activities.

Collage4

Some of the kid makers we came across (there were many others):

Mark you calendars for the next Maker Faire or similar event near you and encourage+help your child make and exhibit something. It’s just an awesome experience for kids! Nothing quite like Maker Faire Bay Area.

And one more thing…. Omkar got featured in the local newspaper! 🙂 🙂

Kid maker to entrepreneur, celebrating the spirit of Maker Faire

It was back in 2013 Omkar made his very first Arduino project at the age of 6 having attended couple of Maker Faires by then. At the 2014 Maker Faire, he got to meet Quin and several other kid makers inspiring him to dream of starting a business. But he had to come up with a product idea first. 🙂 After toying with several ideas, he decided on making a kid’s smartwatch. His first effort was received with much encouragement from the maker community including Atmel and Adafruit.

Omkar exhibited a prototype at MFBA 2015 and got validation from other kids and parents who showed keen interest. All the words of encouragement from makers and well wishers including the folks from Particle, Pebble and Atmel motivated him to go ahead with the project. This really speaks to the spirit of the Maker Faire community that is super supportive of all makers, especially kids.

MFBA15 2

There Omkar also met the CEO of TinyCircuits who kindly accepted our request to partner and supply the required electronics. Further, Kickstarter made it possible for him to bring O Watch to market with the kind support of awesome backers from across the globe.

Omkar’s vision for O Watch is to inspire kids to get started with design, 3D printing, crafting and coding while making a fully functional product they can use daily. And he wishes to meet more makers and partners at MFBA16 to make O Watch even better and accessible for kids.

If you are in Bay Area, don’t miss Maker Faire! It is the event where kids will get exposure to all types of making and meet budding entrepreneurs to experience first hand the basics of kickstarting a business.

Please stop by the O Watch exhibit in Zone 2 for a chance to win an O Watch! For those who are unable to make it to MF, we’ve a 10% discount to celebrate Maker Week using the promo code 10OFFMF16 via the O Watch store.

Truly the greatest show on earth!

MFBA15 2

That’s Omkar’s statement after exhibiting his O Watch as a maker for the first time at Maker Faire 2015 Bay Area. Thanks to the organizers, volunteers and all the amazing makers, attendees and exhibitors for the encouragement and support.

O Watch at Maker Faire!

O Watch Preview

  • What is O Watch?
    • A Kids Arduino Programmable Watch to encourage young kids get started with programming and 3d design.
    • This current prototype is made using the TinyScreen kit with associated sensors and 3d printed cases using SketchUp and Printrbot.
  • Why O Watch?
    • Omkar’s vision is to make kids design their own watches and personalize it.
    • His goal is to make it kid friendly by creating some libraries with help from the community, friends and family.
    • This is a good way to get kids interested in designing their own 3d printed custom cases and straps.
  • What next?
    • Omkar is seeking partners to bring this idea to market.
    • Plan is to launch on Kickstarter later this year.
    • Please sign up below for early Kickstarter notification.

Sign up to be notified: https://iot4kids.com/o-watch-sign-up/ 

2014 Maker Faire – year of the kid maker

Just got back from attending the Maker Faire 2014 in SF Bay Area. This was our 3rd Maker Faire and as in the past years we wished we had more time there.

The 2012 Maker Faire and an article on Popular Science about 12 year old entrepreneur Quin Etnyre sparked my son’s interest in making. So certainly the big highlight of the day was meeting Quin himself in person who was generous with his time and goodies. Be sure to check out his company website qtechknow.com for his kid friendly Arduino products.

Quin

The second highlight was the encounter with Spark Core team at their booth. They were so super awesome in recognizing my son from his last video and showered him with praises, encouragement and goodies (even a new Spark Core!). Plus he got to meet their CEO Zach Supalla who was really nice to offer encouragement and support. Thanks guys – we promise to make some cool projects with the 2 Spark Cores soon.

A few other kits that he was really interested in were:

Except the Phoenard all the others look like good kits for young kids to get started, though he said the Phoneard was the coolest thing he saw at the show. The best part was seeing exhibits from many young makers including these 12 year olds:

…sure feels like year of the kid maker!