Tag Archives: new technology

Call for Makers Open through January 31!

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Want to be a Maker at the Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire?  If you’re just demoing, it’s free!  We welcome crafts, engineering, music, robots, workshop digital fabrication, energy, demonstrations, performances, projects and anything home made, innovative, instructive, artistic and interesting!

Our  Tampa Bay Mini Maker application is now live, and we’ll accept applications through the end of January!

Applying

The first step to participating in our Mini Maker Faire is to submit an entry that tells us about yourself and your project. Entries can be submitted from individuals as well as from groups such as hobbyist clubs and schools. We’ll want a short description of what you make and what you will actually bring to Maker Faire, along with links to photographs or videos of what you make. We particularly encourage exhibits that are interactive and that highlight the process of making things.   Here’s some of what we’re looking for:

  •  Student Projects
  • Music Performance and Participation
  • 3D Printers and CNC Mill
  • Textile Arts and Crafts
  • Home Energy Monitoring
  • RC Toys
  • Sustainability
  • Green Tech
  • Radios, Vintage Computers and Game Systems
  • Electronics
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Biology/Biotech and Chemistry Projects
  • Food and Beverage Makers
  • Robotics
  • Puppets
  • Kites
  • Bicycles
  • Shelter (Tents, Domes, etc.)
  • Unusual Tools or Machines
  • How to Fix Things or Take them Apart (Vacuums, Clocks, Washing Machines, etc.)

Types of Makers

Makers: Individuals, groups, schools and organizations that would like to demonstrate what they make and/or how it works in an interactive environment. For Maker groups, schools & organizations, we ask that you have one point person to coordinate your group efforts. Makers do not pay a fee to exhibit at Maker Faire for non-commercial exhibits.

Commercial Makers: Individuals who would like to sell products along with demonstrating what they make at their Mini-Maker exhibit. If you are a Maker with a product that you would like to sell at Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, please let us know us that you are a Commercial Maker on your application.  There is a $75 fee for commercial makers.

Please note, companies or commercial entities do not qualify as Commercial Makers. If you are a company or commercial entity, please see our Sponsor page.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in DIY, DIY Fun, Entrepreneurs, Florida Inventors, Hobbysts, Inventions, Mini Maker Faire, Tampa Bay inventors, Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, Young Makers

Tagged , , , , ,

Edison’s Great Grandson Says Edison Would Have Loved New Light Bulb Law

Posted on January 6, 2012 | 1 Comment

Starting January 1, a new  light-bulb law went into affect nationwide, setting new efficiency standards . The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act requires 100-watt light bulbs to use 72 percent electricity to produce the same amount of light by Jan. 1, 2012, according to the government’s Energy Star website.

David Edward Edison Sloane, a professor of English at the University of New Haven and the great-grandson of the inventor Thomas A. Edison, who is writing a book titled “Edison’s Daughter,” about his grandmother, Madeleine Edison Sloane, tells CNN he thinks his great-grandfather would approve.

“My great grandfather’s 100-watt incandescent will be replaced with new energy-efficient versions, including CFLs, LEDs, and — yes — new and improved incandescent bulbs. When better lighting is fully implemented throughout our country, we’ll be saving $13 billion a year in electricity costs and we’ll eliminate the need for 30 large power plants, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.

“And my great-grandfather wouldn’t have it any other way.”

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Florida Inventors, Inventions

Tagged , , , , , , ,

2012 Cade Museum Prize

Posted on December 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Cade Museum Prize is an incentive competition for early-stage inventors and entrepreneurs in Florida.  The primary goal of the Prize is to provide seed capital for projects that are moving in the direction of a product or service that has a practical application.  While we accept all types of entries, the most competitive are those in the early stages that are developing a truly innovative idea.  We also believe in the power of a team and favor ideas with a multi-disciplinary team (or company) formed for the purpose of advancing the idea.

The Prize is open to all Florida residents or Florida-based companies.  At least one of your team members must be a full-time Florida resident or your company headquarters must be in Florida.     The deadline to submit an entry is January 13, 2012.

The Early Bird entry fee of $35 is valid until December 23.  ( After December 23 the fee will increase to $50). Once you click Submit you will be redirected to the payment page.   The entry will not be complete until you complete your payment.

Please e-mail all questions to cadeprize@cademuseum.org

Visit http://www.cademuseumprize.org/ for more details and to access the online registration form.   And learn about the Cade Museum here .

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Entrepreneurs, Florida Inventors, Inventions

Tagged , , ,

Retooling Public Libraries as Hackerspaces

Posted on December 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

In Libraries make Room for High Tech Hackerspaces, NPR reports this weekend on a promising trend in the redefinition of libraries, or perhaps more accurately, in the growing realization of the amazing and wonderful potential of public libraries not only as pivotal centers of learning and discovery, but also of creation!

Learning is for Everyone (LI4E) , the community learning organization organizing Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, has long believed libraries and museums  can and should be  key learning centers  in our communities.   We wholeheartedly agree with Thomas Gokey,  who teaches a course in Innovation in Public Libraries and narrates the film below,  that libraries are “democracy engines… places where people go to inform themselves and inform their own lives…” , where we “learn to hack the social codes we live in.”

With Maker Bots bringing 3D printing capabilities within reach of more people, efforts are already underway at libraries across the country to create public hackerspaces.  The Fayetteville Free Library in upstate New York calls their planned  Fabulous Laboratory, an “evolution of a computer lab”. The “FabLab”  will have about 8,000 square feet and employ computer driven power tools  Allen County Public Library, in Fort Wayne, IN has created a hackerspace portable in a trailer in its parking lot.

We love the notion, proposed in the film,  of “the world as one big public library,” especially if its got 3D printers and power tools!

→ Leave a comment

Posted in DIY, DIY Fun, Hobbysts, Inventions, Makers, New technology

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mobile touch-typing with a simple chord keyboard

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

Tampa Bay Inventors Council president, Wayne Rasanen, of New Port Richey, is hoping for a kick-start for his chord keyboard Input Terminal.

“The “It Types” keyboard has only ten keys, one for each finger and by taping one or by holding one and pressing another, you can create 100 keystrokes. This reduces the footprint of the keyboard to about the size of a credit card, ideal for mobile technology. The design is very versatile & can be used with one hand or two, and for a wide variety of uses.”

Read more at Kick-Starter and at Mr. Rasanen’s website In10did .

→ 1 Comment

Posted in DIY, Florida Inventors, Inventions, New technology, Tampa Bay inventors

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Adjustable Eyeglass Lenses: A New Way to See the Future

Posted on November 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

A recent news piece about the availability of “world’s first and only electronically-focusing prescription eyewear ” debuting in Tampa Bay brings to the forefront vision technology with the potential to change vision care in a dramatic way, and not just for people who can afford the $1K plus emPower eyewear.

The idea of adjustable focus eyeglasses has been around since Ben Franklin invented the biofocal.  The emPower version uses liquid crystals in the lenses to allow a wearer to turn the “close up” bifocal portion of the lenses on or off as needed.  With the necessary power charger, the eyeglasses run over $1200, out of reach for most folks.  But other efforts are underway to create far more affordable versions.

As Learning is for Everyone readies for our 2nd TEDxYouth@TampaBay event this coming Saturday, there’s probably no more apropos an example of the potential of this new(ish) technology than the great 2009 TED Talk, by  Josh Silver of a mechanical version that he hopes to distribute to a billion people in need by 2020.   Silver is working to get his already low cost version –  less than $20 a pair – down to a dollar a pair!

He began commercially marketing adjustable eyeglasses in the US through his company, TruFocals, for under $900.   But he continues to work on his low cost, version through his foundation, the Centre for Vision in the Developing World. 

(Whoops! We got our facts wrong.  Our apologies to Superfocus – here’s the correct info, with appreciation to Superfocus for their understanding!)

Adjustable focus glasses for presbyopia (aging eyes), called Superfocus, first became commercially available in the US in 2009. Superfocus glasses, developed by Chief Technologist Dr. Stephen Kurtin, mimic the natural focusing action of the youthful human eye. They allow the user to instantly change the focus of their lens to see objects at any length via a slider on the bridge. Unlike bifocals, trifocals or progressive lenses, the region of sharp focus is not limited to a small zone, but instead spans a user’s entire field of vision. You can read more about the science behind these glasses in this NY Times article.

 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Inventions, New technology

Tagged , , , , , , ,