Maker Faire NC 2011

It happened, it finally happened! Something I've been waiting for since last year - the Maker Faire NC! Ok, so what it was just a 1-day mini-Faire. It was still absolutely amazing. Besides, now I know what to prepare for when we go to the big HUMONGOUS Faire in NY in September.

There was so much going on at the Faire that it's hard now to write about it in a coherent way. I tried taking pictures, but lots of times it just didn't happen because I was either busy having fun or there were just too many people around hustling and bustling.

To M's great delight there were LOTS and LOTS of robots. In fact, the very first thing that we did was to watch robots play hockey (M is the blond shortstop in the middle of the row of spectators). Actually, Chris and M watched and I took an opportunity to learn a bit about tatting (something I overheard the other day on NPR).

Then we walked around a bit and M got to try a sewing machine. He said he liked it, but at that point he wasn't much at ease with the whole experience, so I'm not sure if he really did or not.

Fairs and festivals like this are pretty hard for M to get through. He gets overloaded with all the sights, sounds and movements of hundreds of people. So he withdraws, shoulders raised and voice very-very quiet until he finds something so interesting that he gets fully absorbed in the process, forgetting about the discomfort and the overwhelm.

This time around M started to warm up weave a rope and keep it too! He was so happy and proud and made sure to impress it on us that he was going to use the rope in all sorts of construction projects.

But what truly changed the whole Faire experience for him was the Thinker Linkers. He stayed there for a while, building with the linking boards.

It was really a very cool thing. He still has some fine motor problems and playing with Legos (even Duplos) can be a very frustrating experience. Smaller or smooth surfaced blocks present a different problem as he has a hard time lining them up just right to make the entire structure stable. So I was a bit apprehensive. But never fear! M did need just a bit of help at first, but once he really got into it, he was doing just fine.

And he stayed with the Thinker Linkers for quite a while, at least half an hour if not longer. Eventually another, older, boy joined him and then the boy's dad. In the end, they built a "superstructure" as M referred to it. And then the rope came out and M tried to weave it through the structure and make it do something that only he knew.

Other notable finds included a real Star Wars light saber, a display of rockets (yep, M is still heavily into rockets and a trip to a hobby store isn't too far in the future) and a giant marble run.

If I had to narrow my list of Maker Faire "Wow"s to just 3, these would be Thinker Linkers ('cause M did so amazingly well with them), a huge marble run ('cause I love marble runs and Rube Goldberg machines and dream of one day creating a giant one to go all around M's room and then downstairs into the kitchen) and a Feltronics board ('cause ever since our experiment with Squishy Circuits I've been looking for similar preschooler-friendly ideas).

Twice the Fair - Continued (Includes Pix of Me)

Amazing how it works, but the first time I went to the Fair this year, with my whole entire family in tow, I didn't get a single picture of myself taken. It's like I wasn't even there. Not to fear, one can almost always rely on the kindness of strangers. And that's exactly what happened when M and I returned on the last day of the Fair.

We went very early in the morning to avoid the stampede and getting stuck in the dreadful traffic. Think Raleigh can't get big, busy and uncomfortable even if it tried? Well, 1,091,887 people attended NC State Fair this year (the new all-time record) and 110,567 of these people showed up on that last Sunday of the Fair (another record set to which we contributed so now I feel like I've played my part in making history. Maybe I can write a memoir. Wait... I already have this blog!)

Back to the Fair. This time around it was just M and I since grandparents went back to NY and Chris was away for the weekend. With nothing better to do, we spent about 5 hrs roaming the Fair.

Here's the cool part. One of the books I bought for M recently was Russian translation of Paddington Bear stories (BTW, adorable and highly recommended). And one of the stories in the book was about Paddington going to a fair, riding different rides, winning a little toy fish and enjoying himself immensely. So our second time at the Fair was very much Paddington Bear-like.

We walked all around the Fair, looking at pretty much everything. Just like the Bear, we went on a few rides (yeah, I had to go on the horrible spinning cups ride, grhh, yuck). Then M played a little fishing game and won a prize. Guess what the prize was? A little stuffed yellow toy fish, just like the one Paddington'd won in the book!

Here's the funny part (in retrospect). I think I read the Paddington Bear story one too many times 'cause I started believing it just like my not-quite-4-year old did. At the end of the story, Paddington feels very sleepy. Well, that was my secret plan - to stay at the Fair long enough and do enough to get M good and tired so he'd nap for a couple of hours. Wishful thinking! As a matter of fact, he went on a no-nap strike that whole week. So the only thing I accomplished walking around the Fair for 5 hours was getting myself VERY tired for the rest of the day.

Twice the Fair

I don't remember last year's NC State Fair probably because we didn't go. Or if we did, we didn't stay very long. Or we didn't have much fun. Or we didn't eat any of the fair food. Well, to make up for the lack of memories from last year's Fair, we've done this year's Fair TWICE.
The first time the entire family - my parents, Chris, M and myself - went there on the opening weekend. Aside from Grampa's complaints and total lack of enthusiasm, it was a good outing. We walked around just a bit, mostly in the Garden Exhibit area (my favorite); took M on a few rides; and had some mediocre fair food.

FRESH FRIED FOOD

So let's start with food. The big question this year is did he or didn't he. We all know that Chris got to eat this year's top contender for the title of "Most Disturbing Fair Food Item" - the Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger (yeah, it's a bacon cheeseburger with a KK donught instead of a normal bun). But did he really enjoy it? To his (Chris') credit, he actually didn't. What's it going to be next year? How about a deep-fried PBJ sandwich?

Everyone else was a bit more cautious in their food choices. Well, Grandpa got some kind of sandwich that was big on sauteed onions and chunks of deep-fried grease. Grandma went for a turkey leg and corn on the cob (actually, good choices both, but we'll attribute them to the beginner's luck since that was her first ever State Fair).

M had a corndog and cotton candy. And I had a grilled corn and fried green tomatoes (delicious while hot, afterwards just greasy).

RIDES

This year was the first time M got to go on a couple of rides all by himself! Hooray! He went on a kind of a carousel ride and also on a kiddie roller-coaster. Of course, he was thrilled with both! But he also loved the Jungle Adventure maze-obstacle course, spinning cups and a mega slide.

But that first time we didn't get to see much of anything, just the kiddie rides and the food and some old time-y arts and crafts (predictably, M was thrilled by the loom and the spinning wheel).

MUSIC

And then, as we were about to leave, we came across this one-man band. It was clearly a show for kids since there on the ground, in front of this guy, was a box full of shakers, rattles, and various noise-makers. The kids were encouraged to grab whatever noise-maker they liked and join the performance. Needless to say, M loved the idea, especially after he spied a pair of cymbals, lying neglected on the bottom of the box.

Oh, but here's the funniest part - while all the rest of the kids faced the performer (and turned their backs on the audience of, mostly, approving or at least amused parents), M quickly moved closer to the musician guy and turned to face the audience. The only kid to have done so!

BlockFest Comes to Raleigh

Have you ever heard of BlockFest? Neither had I until recently. It's this travelling program that teaches parents how playing with building blocks helps children develop math skills. So it's kind of a workshop where kids get to play with different kinds of blocks while parents learn how to "facilitate" and teach basic math concepts.

Well, not to sound like a know-it-all or anything like that, but I kind of already knew a thing or two about the benefits of playing with blocks and how develops math, logic, etc. Some of it is fairly self-evident and the rest I got from all those smart books I skim through.

But it was still a lot of fun to go to the BlockFest. It was like a mega playdate, really. At least the first 2 times we got to go. The third time things got off to the rocky start, but once a large group of very roudy preschoolers left, it all got back to normal.

So there were 5 kinds of blocks - large cardboard blocks, unit blocks, pattern blocks, Keva planks, and large and small foam blocks. We have large cardboard blocks at home and M knows and loves unit blocks and foam blocks. He gets to play with them at the Marbles Kids Museum. But the pattern blocks and Keva planks were very new.

While he wasn't too impressed with Kevas, M got totally into pattern blocks. Surprise-surprise, he even chose the most challenging patterns to copy, the ones with hidden blocks, and was able to complete them mostly on his own. So now I'm on a look-out for pattern blocks. Oh, and for unit blocks.

Anyway, as you can see, for 2 out of 3 days he's been going to the BlockFest dressed in his astronaut costume. He wanted to make sure that "everyone knows that I am a little boy astronaut". And to make sure that the message really sunk in, M built several rockets out of various blocks. Yeah, by the way, the rockets he designed and built all by himself without my help!

SparkCon Weekend Blast-Off

I had no idea, but apparently every year there's this big festival in Raleigh called SparkCon. I'm not going to explain what it's all about since you can read about it over at SparkCon's site. Besides, I'm not 100% sure I understand all of it anyway. But here's what SparkCon meant for M and I this past weekend (Chris was busy being a soldier - running, marching, doing paperwork, and trying to find his way in the woods without a GPS).

So, first and foremost M didn't care very much to go to a festival. That was a not-so-promising beginning. Then we got there very early and he didn't really want to do any crafts at the crafts tent. Slowly he got into it and we did a couple of projects that involved mostly stickers, but he was very cranky through it all.

Things were getting from bad to worse. As the festival was getting busier, M decided that he wouldn't walk, but rather had to be wheeled in a stroller. Fine... So we strolled the entire length of the Fayetteville Street, checking out artists that were busy creating chalk paintings. Here are some of the ones I loved the most.

Then, on the way back we spied this super-cool water sculpture and M wanted to try it out. Perfect! Finally, out of his stroller! As he waited patiently for his turn, a couple of kids in front of him knocked down the main bamboo supports and the entire installation fell down.

The embarrased parents rushed in to right it up. Just as we almost, but not quite fixed the darn thing, another little kid climbed on the low stool to pour water in, leaned on the pipe a bit too much and sent it tumbling down again. Once again, all the parents (and some passerbies) rushed in to save the moment.

In the mean time, M was running back and forth to watch the water flow down the pipes and back into the bucket. Sure thing, he tripped over the raffia strings and knocked down the ENTIRE installation. After being knocked down 3 times in about 3 minutes, this structure did not look the same any longer. The pipes were cracked and wouldn't line up. But the kids were still fascinated by it. Besides, it brought so many total strangers together as they valiantly, but vainly tried to re-build it. So I think it was definitely the most hands-on activity that required team work and fostered a sense of community at SparkCon. And for that it deserves special recognition (that's why I'm writing about it in all the details; besides it gave me a great idea for a water feature for M's playground).

Warmed up with all this fixing-things stuff, we stopped by the ScrapExchange tent. Let me tell you, it's been so much fun that now I'm thinking about taking M to Durham at some point to their studio for some extended crafting. I mean, how can it not be super-duper awesome - there are bags and boxes and barrells filled to the bream with all sorts of scraps - fabric, plastic parts of all shapes and sizes, paper, sticky paper, stickers, tape, yarn, etc, etc - and you and your kid are left to create something out of all (or part) of it using nothing but scissors and again, some sticky tape. Awesome awesomeness, that's what I call it!

Evidently many other people shared my opinion because it was easily the busiest place on Fayetteville St in the early afternoon. And I think parents got into the building process with as much or more enthusiasm than their little ones. A couple of boys and their dads built rockets and, predictably, set off a chain reaction - now every boy wanted to make a rocket. M was no exception. It took us a little while, but we've our first rocket. It was held together primarily with stickers and rubberbands (I won't be surprised if NASA hires M or me one of these days).

After that it was time to go 'cause it was getting late and M was obviously tired. But he made me promise that we'd return the next day to build an even bigger rocket. To be perfectly honest, he didn't have to push too hard on this one. Come to think of it, I might've even suggested this idea to him myself and he replied "Hooray!".

The next day, Sunday, both of us could hardly wait for the festival to open. We got to the ScrapExchange tent and for a few minutes were the only ones. Right away, we started on the rocket. But it was a bigger one, with a more advanced design and, after the Saturday stumpede, fewer materials to work with. Took us a bit longer, but we've managed. Well, M mostly kept bringing me various odds and ends and asking to add them to the rocket. That's, for example, why our rocket is probably the only one with an attached hanger (hey, every rocket needs it to weather the storms in; yeah, I know, it's spelled differently).

And then we built a few other things - a pair of binoculars that gave M an idea to build a robot that he named ZigZag-a-Roll (yeah, sometimes he surprises me with the names he picks). If you look at the robot carefully, you can still see the binoculars - they are now robot's legs. Finally, M fashioned a gun (what else) out of some spare parts.

It was time to move on and we walked down the street, admiring the chalk art. Ok, I was doing the admiring and M was mostly insisting on moving on. Then we got to the blocks area where for a while M was the only kid for a while. He promptly collected all the blocks and attempted to build a house with a door, but ended up with a tall long wall. Still, he was happy with the result and so was I.

That, plus a few hot dogs and a bucket of french fries really made his weekend!