Rob Goes to Maker Faire Detroit

OK there was this car, a blue mid-80s Volvo, covered boot to bonnet with plastic fish SINGING OPERA and dancing. They were individually animated, and vigorously conducted by a lobster formerly named Larry.

Somebody made a fist-sized fully functional model of a big block V8 engine that actually ran on gasoline just like the real thing.

Two guys put on a synchronized show with 105 one-liter Coke Zero bottles and 600 Menthos. They sprayed Coke all over the place. It was great.

There were some guys smoking meat on a web-controlled smoker, a time machine, the world’s loudest air horn, and of course rocket launches.

The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir

There was a Twinkie-mobile driving around launching Twinkies 150 feet into the crowd.

Click here for the YouTube video of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir.

People were peddling through the crowd on fire breathing four-person and six-person vehicles that looked like eight foot tall planetary rovers. Robots played chess. People played chess and giant robot chess pieces moved all by themselves.

A flying robot

Robots played music. Robots sang. Robots ran around and talked to people. Flying machines of all descriptions… flew.

I had my picture taken with the ACTUAL Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile!

This all happened at the Maker Faire in Detroit this past weekend. Thousands of amateur inventors, nerds and geeks came to the Henry Ford Museum for a, well, for a huge nerdfest – so you know I had to be there. Here’s a good YouTube video.

The weather was perfect, and I had a blast. It was well worth the twelve hour drive from Memphis. Click around the links to see pictures and videos.

Rob Cosgrove is the President of Remote Backup Systems, founder of the Online Backup Industry, a nerd, and a vocal advocate for maintaining the highest standards in Online Backup software. His latest book, the Online Backup Guide for Service Providers: How to Start and Operate an Online Backup Service, is available online now, on Amazon.com, and at bookstores.

Remote Backup Systems provides brandable, scalable software and solutions to MSPs and VARs enabling them to offer Online Backup Services.

 

 

About The Author

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Steve Roberts / http://remote-backup.com

Steve Roberts is VP of Engineering at Remote Backup Systems (http://remote-backup.com), developers of the RBackup Online Backup software platform, providing software powering more than 9,500 Service Providers in 65 countries since 1987.