MaKey MaKey lets you turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It's an invention kit for everyone, making creative physical computing accessible with no electronics and no programming required.
The MaKey MaKey circuit board pretends it's a USB keyboard, but you make your own keys by alligator clipping it to objects that are at least a little bit conductive. Press the spacebar by completing a circuit when you touch a banana, your grandma, or a penny. Make a piano out of pastries, or a game controller out of play-doh.
In this session, after a quick intro to MaKey MaKey, we'll spend our time tinkering and hacking. We'll focus on inventions that extend open source web technologies into the physical world in playful new ways.
Beginning with a brief intro to the MaKey MaKey kit, participants will move quickly to having a chance to try it out individually or in small groups. We'll do some brainstorming together, spend most of the time hacking together crazy inventions, and then wrap up with demos and reflection.
We will plan to have a variety of materials on hand for people to build with, including conductive materials, craft materials, and tools.
Who should come?
by Martyn Eggleton and Waterbear
People who have never programmed anything will become Physical Computing programmers, by using Waterbear, a drag-and-drop visual environment for programming. This allows users to write code by snapping blocks together like Legos, and to build by exploring.
We will build Arduino powered sweet dispensers where your sweets are secured by physical passwords which we will code using Waterbear for Arduino.
You will learn the skills to code for Arduino at home and teach your own Arduino coding workshops without typing or knowing any syntax. Waterbear for Arduino is entirely web-based, all you need is a browser that can access the website and an Ardunio.
by Jon Rogers
Play with fun, interactive prototypes that make the web physical. Curated by Dundee’s Product Research Studio Fieldguide will bring together a diverse mix of designers, technologists, artists, musicians and journalists to show some of their most exciting work. These projects, prototypes and products will demonstrate the amazing potential of a physical internet. Drawing from a mix of people from emerging to established practitioners, objects from labs and objects from studios – we hope to inspire people to get involved in making the web connect to them. Possible exhibitors include:
by Tinkercad
Quickly turn your idea into a CAD model for a 3D printer. We'll be designing and printing models using industrial-grade 3D printers. Come learn how to design a 3D model in the browser that's fit for printing, and then see how it gets made.
by nathan miller, Squared, Aidan O'Callaghan, Giulia Watson and Emma White
Squared focuses on how to work collaboratively to think fast and creatively in a business landscape that is constantly disrupted by emerging technologies.
As graduates of Google, Hyper Island and IPA partnership education, which aimed to 'empower the next generation of leaders to drive industry evolution', we feel that it is important to bring the skills we have learned in self-empowerment, community building, and creative idea generation to a wider audience.
We would like to share theories around how to approach business, products or projects in a way which facilitates brilliant thought leadership and collaboration, both digitally and in-person.
How will we do it?
Using some of the techniques we have learned, we will empower participants to form project teams, make these teams productive and collaborative quicker.
We'll also learn about using technology efficiently and making the most of the collaborative opportunities it presents as well as revealing how we best work in a project team.
Take-aways:
Who should come?
by stresslimit, Prefontaine and celinecelines
Books — even ebooks — are still isolated from the web. They are not yet part of the interconnected open web, in the way that websites, and even music and video already are.
As part of the Building Webmakers track at the 2012 Mozilla Festival, we’re at the same time curating content about webmakers and demo-ing PressBooks, a platform that makes books truly part of the open web — web-native, open, collaborative, linkable and responsive to all desktop and mobile devices.
Join us to make the Webmakers book, in real time. This session is an introduction and kick-off to the project, which will continue to evolve over the course of the festival. We’ll provide an overview of PressBooks and strategize about content and how we'll collaborate. Then off you go — attend other Webmaker sessions and contribute remotely. We’ll be working on the book throughout the weekend!
Send an email to [mozfest@stresslimitdesign.com] to become a contributor, suggest content, or ask a question. Once you log on you can post new content or send (CC-licensed!) content from existing blogs, articles, and stories — either online or offline. Or you can help us edit: we’ll need to choose themes and chapters, and write a bit of meta text. Our goal: Create an awesome webmaker resource!
At the end of MozFest, we’ll use PressBooks to output to EPUB and PDF. You’ll also be able to order a physical book. And we’ll be sending out copies to our top 10 contributors!
Take-aways:
Remember when Intel turned your life into a museum exhibition using your Facebook data? Or when Google put your place of birth into Arcade Fire’s The Wilderness Downtown video? How about when Take This Lollipop warned you – specifically you – about the dangers of social networking? That’s ‘Perceptive Media’, and it’s coming to a TV near you – eventually.
We're going to hack on ideas for how a TV or radio signal can be modified to create a subtly different version of what you were watching, personalised for you.