Another Year of Creativity and Fun at the Palm Beach Mini Maker Faire
We were super excited to once again attend the Palm Beach Mini Maker Faire, where over 1,000 young creative minds packed the South Florida Science Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The Mini Maker Faire brings together people from all walks of life, but with one common goal- to create, design, and inspire. This year’s event featured over 65 maker booths and workshops, including 3-D printing demos, screen printing, virtual reality video game setups, arts and crafts, and DIY workshops.
We loved rocking out with the kids last year, helping them draw, design, and digitize their own record covers inspired by classic records like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. We were eager to get back into the creative ring at this year’s Mini Maker Faire.
Welcome to the Sticker Factory!
This year, we wanted the kids to take control and get excited about the endless opportunities and fun they can have while designing and getting their creative juices flowing. Thus, the AR Design sticker factory was born! We hand selected a variety of pop-culture and eye-catching backgrounds for kids to pose with and edit themselves into. We quickly learned that unicorns, Sofia the First, Paw Patrol, and the Avengers are very popular with kids today.
We set up a massive green screen, camera, and computer, and walked the kids step-by-step, showing them how they could use graphic design software to cut themselves out and transport themselves to a place of make believe magic.
The kids had a blast watching their own creativity evolve from choosing their background, posing in front of the green screen, and watching their stickers get edited, and come to life through the printed sticker sheets. They all walked away with a huge smile and their printed products.
Star Wars Invades
Children, adults, and even a baby posed for their close-ups, and whole families and groups created unique stickers and memories. We even had unexpected guests from a Galaxy far, far away join in on the fun – Stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, and a couple of Jawas walked around the Science Center, greeting attendees, before stopping by our set up.
Everyone who created with us had a great time, including Cocoa the teddy bear who accompanied one of the young creative minds who stopped by our booth. We made sure Cocoa had a weekend to remember by sending him to the Eiffel tower and printing stickers to prove it.
Being creative is fun!
A big takeaway from the day was that everyone wants to be creative and design, even if at first they don’t think they do.
The event was capped off by a fun and visual Liquid Nitrogen Explosion, presented by South Florida Science Center educators. Everyone gathered outside of the center to watch liquid nitrogen and bubbles create a soapy explosion, marking an amazing Maker Faire, and our second year of being involved.
The Maker Faire, which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, is all about providing a space for creative minds, businesses, and agencies to come together, learn, and collaborate under one roof. That certainly was the perfect place for AR Design to spend a Saturday.