Textile Friday: Feltronics

                  This past week was a fun new fair to me, Burlington Maker Faire. This comes before the big Maker Faire: North Carolina in a few months which we will be showing in. There was a lot stuff I loved in this nerdy adult science faire,  but my favorite was Feltronics which featured circuit boards made of felt and soldiered electronics which comes out of the Charlotte Hackerspace. This project won the Make magazine's hackerspace challenge this past year and features cool soft components that can be combined to teach elementary kids how to design circuits.
                   Can we say yum, yum yum? eTextiles is so much fun in my book and it's such a wide wild wild west at the moment that I'm enjoying seeing it evolve. Plus, there's something fun about seeing another local group come up with a cool idea and win awards from it. It's fun to route for the home team. If you want to make your own kit, you can check out their website. In general, they say that cost to make your own should run you under $100, mostly the arduino being the largest cost. Felt is pretty easy to cut out on a laser so I think that you can either do this by cutting out the templates and then gluing them together or you can also do this by hand. Needless to say, one of the better applications of felt I've seen in making a difference that actually makes sense to me.
                    I'm really looking forward to seeing what people bring this year to Maker Faire: North Carolina. Thanks everyone for a great time this past weekend. What a joy.