By John Joy ’18, Contributor
From my first day at Country Day, I’ve fulfilled a niche that only a brave few can take on. I have suffered through countless battles with large rubber snakes, made countless blood sacrifices to the computer gods, and solved the riddles given to me in the form of Windows’ errors. I am tech support, and with a role of such magnitude comes responsibilities such as volunteering at anything that might involve computers. This divine gift guided me to MakerFest this year; because of the nonexistent overlap between journalists and nerds, I am the only person who was willing to describe their MakerFest experience. From the beginning I was very confused on what the MakerFest was until about halfway through the actual event, primarily due to the fact that first half was meant for teachers, not students. However, there is a lot to be said about how many teachers look to Country Day for advice on how to either implement or enhance their own makerspaces. Due to the fact that the standard student brain is the size of a walnut, I ended up spending most of my morning attempting to set up a camera with some of the smartest people in my grade, and subsequently lost any and all faith in my grade’s ability to do pretty much anything.
After the blow to my confidence that was the first half of this event, I was really feeling out of place as a “maker.” I felt more like that one annoying person who constantly orbits around a group of people trying to enter a conversation, but never does (not like I’ve ever had any experience doing that or anything…). But everything changed once the gym floor opened and the actual “MakerFest” began. At this point the standard human would probably enter the gym and call in a bomb threat because anything with exposed wiring HAS to be a bomb. If they were feeling brave or forgot their phone, they would probably get freaked out by the gigantic WALL-E/Terminator hybrid that was running around the gym. It’s a different story for the nerds however, as ironically the gym was more or less a condensed heaven for anybody who needed to file a complaint to the help desk because they wouldn’t let him upgrade his computer (once again, totally haven’t done this before). 3-D printers completely dominated the show, although people were mainly just printing Minecraft swords, with the occasional jet engine part showing up. There were also a few jealousy-inducing robotics demos, with everything from human-sized box-stacking robots to laser CNC machines that could probably make a square fit through a circle hole. A lot of the showcases for MakerFest were either completely unannounced or were last-minute additions to the roster, which really added some diversity to lineup. I would almost say it has too much diversity; while decorating pumpkins can be fun, it isn’t exactly related to what’s going on. Overall, I found that there are great foundations for next year’s MakerFest, but it will never be as good as it could be unless attendance increases.
Image Source: Replicator2 Press Assets. Digital image. MakerBot. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
