I thought I'd pass this along, since there is at least one major woodworking exhibit AND it's free!!
Maker Faire is a free exhibition of people in the "maker" community-- generally regarded as people who repurpose various materials, building something new or improving on something that already exists. It leans heavily toward tech-geek, but any woodworker who finds that wood gears guy's work intriguing should like this.
Maker Faire:NC will be held at Loehmann's Plaza, 1821 Hillandale Rd, Durham, NC 27705.
All the details are available on their website: http://makerfairenc.com/
ShopBot, a major CNC router manufacturer, will be demoing at least one of its products (Tyro).
TechShopRDU will be there... and some of the guys from TSRDU will be exhibiting their "MakerBot"-- a "3D printer" that can make plastic parts... a primary goal of the original MakerBot projects was to have a MakerBot create the necessary parts to make more MakerBots (artifical reproduction.. an offshoot of the artifical intelligence movement in computing). Pretty amazing stuff these guys are doing.
Here's a link to their exhibitors: http://makerfairenc.com/exhibitors-master-list/
EDIT 4/21, 4:42p: I've also learned that TechShop will be offering $39 Membership Tickets good for one month membership and two free classes. I took advantage of this same offer in January. Normally, one month's use of TechShop is $99... and you need to pay for individual safety/user classes before using most of the tools/shops (about $30/hour of class time).
AND-- check this out:
"We will take names and email addresses from people who want to join our mailing list for a chance to win a one year membership to TechShop. They will enter their information on a computer and we will notify the winner by email."
That's a $999 value!!
Maker Faire is a free exhibition of people in the "maker" community-- generally regarded as people who repurpose various materials, building something new or improving on something that already exists. It leans heavily toward tech-geek, but any woodworker who finds that wood gears guy's work intriguing should like this.
Maker Faire:NC will be held at Loehmann's Plaza, 1821 Hillandale Rd, Durham, NC 27705.
All the details are available on their website: http://makerfairenc.com/
ShopBot, a major CNC router manufacturer, will be demoing at least one of its products (Tyro).
TechShopRDU will be there... and some of the guys from TSRDU will be exhibiting their "MakerBot"-- a "3D printer" that can make plastic parts... a primary goal of the original MakerBot projects was to have a MakerBot create the necessary parts to make more MakerBots (artifical reproduction.. an offshoot of the artifical intelligence movement in computing). Pretty amazing stuff these guys are doing.
Here's a link to their exhibitors: http://makerfairenc.com/exhibitors-master-list/
EDIT 4/21, 4:42p: I've also learned that TechShop will be offering $39 Membership Tickets good for one month membership and two free classes. I took advantage of this same offer in January. Normally, one month's use of TechShop is $99... and you need to pay for individual safety/user classes before using most of the tools/shops (about $30/hour of class time).
AND-- check this out:
"We will take names and email addresses from people who want to join our mailing list for a chance to win a one year membership to TechShop. They will enter their information on a computer and we will notify the winner by email."
That's a $999 value!!
