Maker Faire

A need to address a lack of housing for our growing population has turned up some eye-catching efforts recently. Italian firm Wasp is the latest to explore the potential of additive manufacturing in this area, developing a super-sized 3D printer capable of producing low-cost housing made from mud.

While at MakerCon in New York last month, Gizmag's Eric Mack caught up with the creators of the Origami, which they claim is the first portable laser cutter that folds up and can take on any sized task.

Toyota has unveiled a new Urban Utility concept vehicle that's aimed squarely at the popular Maker movement. The U2 will make its first public appearance on September 20 at the World Maker Faire in New York.

The first-ever White House Maker Faire will be hosted by President Obama this month, and that inspired Gizmag to compile our favorite projects from the recent gran-daddy of all Maker Faires.

RoboTar is a robotic guitar hand that attaches to the neck of your instrument and takes care of that tricky fret work allowing for a new way to learn, play one-handed or even encourage experimentation for more experienced players.

The Zeus from AIO Robotics seeks to merge 3D scanning and printing with the push-button simplicity of today's consumer all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines. In the process, the company also created the closest thing we've seen so far to the Star Trek replicator.

LittleBits offers magnetic kits for kids to create their own basic circuits and other cool projects, and the recent addition of an Arduino module now allows those creations to be programmable as well.

The Power Pallet works by burning available biomass, but before the fuel is fully combusted, the resulting flammable gases like hydrogen and carbon monoxide are spirited away to be used instead as fuel in a General Motors engine that acts as an electrical generator.

Gizmag's Eric Mack visited the Bay Area Maker Faire in California and navigated the throng of 3D printing fanatics gathered around a new batch of models from QU-BD offered in bright neon colors.

At Maker Faire recently, Gizmag's Eric Mack got to check out the Touch Board, which turns any conductive material, including the firm's own conductive electric paint, into a potential capacitive touch input.

Augmented reality that's portable, multiuser, flexible, cheap, and intuitive? Gizmag demos the CastAR system at World Maker Faire 2013 and brings back all the details about a fun gadget that's gearing up to enter the marketplace.