Montag, 8. Juni 2015

Maker Faire Hannover 2015

Hello,

Last weekend we were in Hannover, to join this years MakerFaire and to show our velocar at the exhibition.
There were lots of interesing projects, much of electronics, computers, RC-drones, creative workshops for kids and not to forget steam punk.
This was our first event as exhibitors and we were surprised, how much attention our little vehicle has generated.
Maybe the reason was, that we offered free rides in the velocar.
Some of the people were waiting for more than half an hour, to get a ride of five minutes.
I had to explain the somewhat odd steering and braking system with the middle stick to each "pilot" what takes a lot of time.
Now I'm convinced a normal handlebar is better because it's self explaining and also better to control.
That will be a "tuning project" for the near future, 
And now here are some pics from the event:

 Saturday morning, shortly before opening

 bicycle art

Impressing cruiser bikes 
photo taken from power-bikes.de

 Lots of people in our velocar



 Time machine from "Abakus"


 I learned, in Hannover exists a growing number of pedalcars.
 The blue pickup to the right is a great example, build by a guy named Kaiser
At least three more similar vehicles are existing in the local area, 
The green tricycle is a "Mambo", build by Hacker Space Bremen

 Mostly our velocar was driven by three or four persons

 Four guys from the next stand testing the velocar, it still holds together.
(I was a tiny bit in fear)
In the bacvkground you can see their exhibit, a motor trike build from a Fiat 126

And the offical record for the most persons in the velocar:
A family with four kids


A torpedo shaped time machine

 
The fire-breathing mech-dog LRRY

An official report from www.golem.de

After two days, an estimated number of 400 people have made a test drive in our little car and it's still in one piece.
I had to repair two minor defects, a weared out braking cable and a snapped chain, which was repaired within 10 minutes.
It was a great event and a lot of fun to meet and talk to so much people, both makers and visitors.
Surely I want to be a part of the next years event.

Kai