Cay Green shows James Watson, of DNA fame, a 3D printer. Photo used courtesy of Centre for Life and North News and Pictures.

The Maker Faire saw over 10,000 people, including Nobel Prize winner James Watson, Make Magazine founder Dale Dougherty, science fiction author Cory Doctorow and Noisebridge hackerspace founder and TV-B-Gone inventor, Mitch Altman, come to Newcastle’s Centre for Life.

Maker Space had a stand with a variety of members’ projects.  These included the Raspberry Pi Web Grab, a web controlled funfair grabber machine full of sweets, retro gaming machines, glow poi and Model Railway signals.

We also had 5 different types of 3D printer on our stand over the weekend.  Most notably, Jay’s, which was jaw droppingly large.  It was quite fun to see people’s reactions as they realised what it was.

Mitch was good enough to give the Maker Space a plug in one of his talks and came to visit us at the Maker Space stand.

Brian had a stand in the DIY Bio area where you could make a bacteria kiss or use DNA fingerprinting to check if processed foods contained horse meat – which of course they didn’t…

Ed had a brilliant Laser Caper which was a great success with long queues all weekend.  This involved a Mission Impossible style laser tripwire assault course!

Over the weekend we met up with countless makers from around the world and visitors to the space from other UK Maker Spaces including Leeds, London, Manchester and Nottingham.  We now have a Maker Space stamp so we were able to stamp people’s Hackerspace Passports while they were here.

Thanks to all the people who came along and said hello. We hope you had as good a time as we did.

Iain Yarnell