Maybe it’s something to do with those mirror initials of Z.M. But 12 year old Zachary Marks of Melbourne, FL, after getting booted from Facebook by his parents because of his age, developed his own social network for kids, called Grom Social, and just signed a multi-million-dollar partnership with a New York-based IT firm. Take that, Mom and Dad.
Actually, thanks, Mom & Dad, for being so awesomely supportive of your young change agent! Grom Social already has over 14, 000 users!
Ken and Diana Swallow are a husband and wife creative team based in Tampa, who will be joining us this year at the Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire with their awesome creations from their Upcycled Studio. Ken and Diana took a little time to share a bit about their work and creative vision with us here at TBMMF.
using broken electronics, vintage items and found objects. Diana has a passion for metalsmithing and jewelry design and incorporates found objects in her works. Individually we’ve created an online following and fan base, Ken under the name KenBots and Diana under Diana Swallow Designs. Together we participate in local art shows under the name Upcycled Studio. While different, our work shares the similar theme of upcycling and comes together beautifully at our shows.
I started creating things from anything I could get my hands on from a very young age, scraps of fabric and yarn from my mother sparked my creativity. My dad had a construction company and on the weekends I’d watch him weld and fabricate things from metal. As an adult I worked for many years in graphic design and after deciding to change career paths a few times, I found myself in a metalsmthing class using those artistic skills and turning jewelry designs that had been in my head for years into actual jewelry.
gears, strips of aluminum, saxophone keys and more. Instantly she knew these all had jewelry potential. Combining fabrication skills I learned in metalsmithing I started created upcycled jewelry. Ken was approached by the organizers for the Orlando Mini Maker Faire and asked him to participate so in May of 2012 we packed up the car with our creations and headed to Orlando to see what people would think. The positive feedback was overwhelming. We’ve done about seven or eight shows locally since, and are selling online worldwide.
Diana : Design is all around you, inspiration is all around you, don’t try to copy something else is doing, put your own spin on it. Trying to copy what someone else has done exactly will lead to frustration. Look at shapes you see in nature or what you’ve seen on TV and think about new ways something like that could work. You don’t know what you can do until you try, start small and take it from there.
Tampa Bay has a Young Maker’s Club – only the second in Florida, and the only one in Tampa Bay. The Think & Make Club is populated by a creative group of youngsters, one of whom crafted the paper roller coaster shown in the film below. (Science content here)
Logan will be bringing a a sturdy base for a new coaster along for Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, with sufficient supplies for guests to add on to the coaster throughout the day. We could have a paper coaster of stunning proportions!
Jamie Cunningham, aka the Backyard Mad Scientist, will be showcasing his DIY inventiveness as a Maker at our 2013 Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire in March, where he’ll be bringing his homemade 3D printer and some of the cool things he’s made with it, like parts for his homemade CNC machine!
Jamie will also have his latest project ”Monster in a Box” , a Halloween prop that incorporates microcontrollers, stepper motors and electronics.
And he says, “I’m also planning a “top secret” project .”
We asked Jamie to share a bit about his work and rather than repeat himself so soon after a similar interview request, he referred us to his answers for EE Web –
Here’s the highlights:
Air Force Tech school is what really inspired his creative enterprise, and over the intervening years, he wound his way from “bomb loader” for the Air Force to circuit board manufacturing to software development and quality control work, finally ending up as a CAM operator, and then tinkerer extraordinaire in his Backyard Workshop Maker’s oasis.
There, he told EE Web,” Recently after building my CNC machine in the garage, I’ve started to mess around with micro controllers (Parallax Propeller to be exact),” hence the Monster in a Box.
Jamie told EE Web his favorite hardware tool is his home built CNC manchine, 
which is also one of his favorite and most challenging builds. But he’s also very fond of his homemade foundry, which while not technically a tool, is totally awesome. We here at TBMMF have seen his foundry and He uses the foundry to melt aluminum and cast his own parts “usually that were cut out of foam on the CNC machine.”
Jamie also used his CNC machine recently to cut out some three dimensional foam letters for the 
TEDxYouth@TampaBay event back in December, a process he invited local high school FIRST Tech Challenge Team Duct Tape to come watch and learn about. The kids had a great time and were totally inspired by Jamie’s mechanical self-sufficiency.
It’s worth quoting Jamie’s remarks on why he likes the CNC machine so much: “ I like it best because it has been the most challenging and also the most rewarding, I can make just about anything I can think up (as long as I can figure out how to model it). The first machine I made, helped me make parts for the second machine – can’t beat that .”
No. You can’t.
Wonder what that “top secret project” is?
You can learn more about Jamie’s projects at his website, Backyard Workshop and see some of his work in the photo gallery there.
To celebrate the New Year, we’ve gone live a day early with our Maker application!
So have at it! Get your Make on! Wow us with your incredible ingenuity and creativity!
Set our collective minds afire with your amazing DIY inventiveness, and let’s show the world how absolutely amazing Tampa Bay is – not just for our magnificent weather, views, and recreational opportunities – but for our unstoppable creative, entrepreneurial and inventive productivity, energy and intellect.
Exhibits that are interactive or highlight the process of making things are especially desired. Here’s the process…
ENTRIES
The first step to participating in our Maker Faire is to submit an entry that tells us about yourself and your project. Entries can be submitted by individuals or groups like hobbyist clubs and schools. You can apply as a Maker, Commercial Maker (individual makers primarily selling —$50 booth fee), Workshop or Presentation, or Performer. The application asks you to to provide a short description of what you make and what you will actually bring to Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire. Photos, links and videos of exhibit ideas are very helpful. The more we can see and learn about your exhibit, the better your chances of getting Maker space at the Faire.
Here are just some of the things that we’re looking for:
Maker Exhibit: Our standard setup for a Maker exhibit is a 10′x10′ space. If you need more space for your exhibit or project, please let us know. Use this space to display your work and/or demonstrate how you make something.
If you have any questions about participating in Maker Faire, please contact us by email: info@learningis4everyone.org
OTHER WAYS TO PARTICIPATE
Exhibitors and Sponsors: We welcome exhibitors and sponsors at our Mini Maker Faire. For more information about becoming an exhibitor or sponsor, please check out our Sponsor page or contact us at info@Learningis4everyone.org
Volunteer: For information about volunteering at East Bay Mini Maker Faire, please email us at the above address.
We look forward to seeing you at Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire 2013!
Posted in Artists, Craftspeople, DIY, DIY Fun, Entrepreneurs, Florida Inventors, Hobbysts, Inventions, Make, Makers, Mini Maker Faire, Robotics, Sponsors, Tampa Bay inventors, Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, Toys, Young Makers
Tagged Florida Inventors, inventors, MAKE, Maker application, Makers, Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, Tampa inventors, Young Makers
We are! Maker applications and ticket sales go live January 2, 2013! Click here to see what we’re looking for in Maker applications, for a head start on your application. We’re deeply grateful to our event partners, The Concourse, Pasco County Libraries and Learning is for Everyone, and to our fantastic event planning team who will be working behind the scenes to do everything possible to help Make Your Day, at Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire 2013
Posted in Artists, Craftspeople, DIY, DIY Fun, Entrepreneurs, Florida Inventors, Hobbysts, Inventions, Make, Makers, Mini Maker Faire, Model Makers, Music, New technology, Radio, RC, Robotics, ROV, Sponsors, Tampa Bay inventors, Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, Toys, Young Makers
Tagged Florida Inventors, inventors, Learning is for Everyone, MAKE, Maker application, Pasco County Library System, Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, Tampa inventors, The Concourse, tickets, Young Makers
Pepper the Parrot provided unique inspiration for Andrew Gray, a University of Florida electrical- and computer-engineering graduate student. Wired Magazine reported recently on Gray and his “pet project”.
His parrot (appropriately enough an African “Grey”) is garrulous to the point of being ear splitting, when left alone. A previous attempt to apply an engineering solution to the problem – a sound activated water gun intended to provide a little negative reinforcement by squirting the squawker – backfired when Pepper decided he liked his sound activated bird bath. He also became comfortable with a sound activated noisemaker intended to startle him into silence.
Gray reasoned that a bird beak occupied is a bird beak silenced, and the third time was the charm: a joystick operated (by the parrot!), open-loop, two wheel drive, tri-cycle platform powered by a 12v battery and controlled by a microcontroller.
Check out the video below and check out the project specs at Gray’s Bird Buggy site.
Posted in DIY, Florida Inventors, Inventions, Makers
Tagged Andrew Gray, Bird Buggy, Florida Inventors, Pepper the Parrot, University of Florida
The Sun Sentinel reported recently on young inventor, William Georges, an 11 year old who’s toy invention just won Creative Child Magazine’s Toy of the Year Award. According to his family, the Sentinel reports, when Georges was just 6 years old he stuck his mother’s MP3 player through a hole in his old Teddy bear and said, “I just invented my first toy, Mom.”
Things have progressed considerably since then, with the now incorporated Pezo Pal’s first shipment of 2,000 bears arriving from China last month, preloaded with 24 hours of songs, stories and lessons for kids 3 and older.
“I love to design real things that are useful for people,” Georges says on the Pezo Pal website.
“Pezo” means “play” in Greek, which George’s speaks in addition to English. The bears are customizable, allowing kids to “build their Pals anyway they want by downloading the coolest music or adding MP3 audio files anytime! My mission was to invent a toy that allows children to express themselves!”
“Children are better at making toys than adults,” Georges told the Sentinel. Point taken.
Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire is pleased to announce a collaborative agreement with the remarkable folks at The Concourse, a fantastic and multifaceted facility that has served as home to the world class Rockus Maximus: Battle of the Bands 16 and other knock-your-socks-off events!
Learning is for Everyone is delighted to be partnering with the Concourse, the 
Rotary Club of New Port Richey, and the amazing Pasco County Library System to bring you the 2nd Annual Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire on March 23, 2013. We’ll have 10,000 awesome square feet of covered pavilion space, facilities for indoor workshops and classes, and acres of outdoor exhibit space.
In short, we have an entire massive facility that enables us to produce an event easily double the size of our inaugural event held earlier this year.
So save the date, and fire up your imagination – and your soldering irons and blow torches! – hop aboard our Facebook page and Tweet it from the treetops, and start getting ready now for Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire 2013!
It will be ELECTRIC! 
Gabotronics, owned and operated by Gabriel Anzziani, of Sarasota, who was a sponsor participant at inaugural Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire in March as a commercial Maker, has just launched his Xprotolab Portable Oscilloscope on kickstarter in a bid to bring his creation to market.
The Xprotolab is a portable combination of three electronics instruments: an oscilloscope, a waveform generator and a protocol sniffer. The Xprotolab was awarded as one of the 100 Hot Products of 2011, by the EDN magazine. The Xprotolab has been featured in several other online magazines, such as Hack a Day and Elektor.
You can see specs at Gabotronics Kick-Starter page , where you can also pledge your support.
