Day 3 of the world’s largest MakerFaire

We’re on a high after a third and final successful day in Silicon Valley’s MakerFaire.

First, the big news: we were awarded ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Sherry Huss, the co-founder of the global MakerFaires phenomenon and vice-president of Maker Media.  She’s shown below awarding Josephine.

As Professor Michael Shiloh congratulated us on the win, he explained the significance of receiving this award from Sherry in particular, adding that it was ‘kind of a big deal !’

It was a busy day – so many smiles and great questions by members of the public and fellow exhibitors as they learnt about how the Personal Particle Accelerator works.  One of them, who explained is son knew he wanted to be a physicist from the age of 12 (and is now working on his PhD in plasma accelerators) just emailed me this photo.

Click here to see the interview by Kathy Giori (Vice President) and Kelly Brieger (Public Relations) from Arduino, the innovative company that revolutionised maker electronics.  We were also interviewed by Matter Hackers and will post the link when it’s ready.  We’re thrilled our Personal Particle Accelerator has excited both everyday makers, primary and high school students, everyday makers and parents, and talented specialists – we counted at least five with advanced degrees in Physics !

Also exciting are the various conversations with educational providers, who deal with many hundreds, and even thousands of students per year – their involvement will help spread far and wide the inspiration that became the Personal Particle Accelerator.

Don’t forget to sign up for updates so you don’t miss our Kickstarter launches, and better yet, any special offers.

Paul’s Laser Controller had a huge day, with loads of interest, and lots of makers looking forward to his Kickstarter campaign.  A huge number of K40 laser cutters are out there in garages and makerspaces in the community, and sadly some fundamental design issues limit their use.  Huge smiles broke out as MakerFaire attendees realised that Paul’s laser controller upgrades their dust-gathering K40’s into sophisticated cutting and engraving systems… Paul was not only asked when the controllers are available, but whether they could buy 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5 for their friends !

Other questions asked were:

  • I like the detail and shading, can this be used on other lasers or pen plotters? Yes, as long it has two stepper motors and a power supply. Paul has at home a huge old Trotec laser that he converted.
  • How does it do the engraving so well?  The design utilises and unofficial Arduino R4 design.  The official Arduino R4 design should be coming out soon, so we’re right on the cutting edge !  Bob Martin from Microchip/AVR kindly gave us free in circuit Arduino debuggers to ease our development work, thanks Bob !

Now Paul’s mission is to rapidly establish the Laser Controller’s distribution network, so that its footprint can grow to match the K40 lasers that have spread across the globe.

The MakerFaire event included guest presentations from well known personalities like Adam Savage (of TV show Mythbuster’s fame)

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