Jennifer's 365 Project

It's time for the 2018 Detroit Maker Faire. It's in such a good location since there are so many other fun things for the little one to see.
 Like cars!
 There are always plenty of robots, doing all sorts of different things (like a dragon blowing bubbles!).
 And of course a fire breathing dragon, which has become a staple at this event.
 He had a lot of fun with the Magformers and these E-Blox.
After a few hours we stopped by for a little at my parents house. My mom brought up my brother's old cache of micromachines, which Quinn adored.
 And then we stopped at Grandma Karath's house, which features two new trucks!
Chris and I snuck away for some quiet time while Grandma and Quinn played with cars.

The annual Detroit Maker Faire is this weekend at The Henry Ford! We didn't go last year, but I was excited to take Quinn this year.
He had a good time, although he started to lose interest after about three hours. Next year will be even more fun.
After we headed to grandma Karath's house, where she had a cool Cars 3 racing track waiting!

We spent Sunday at Greenfield Village with Grandpa Karath, Uncle Jeff and Grandma and Grandpa Oslund.
It was sunny, it was hot, and it was a lot of fun. 
 He enjoyed the classic cars driving by, the train, and all of the animals.
He took a two hour nap in the car and woke up asking for a milkshake. He has such great ideas.

With the week off between jobs, we decided to take a mini-vacation to the east side of the state and visit the grandparents. Our first stop is The Henry Ford!
Since it's a Tuesday, the museum was pretty empty. That's perfect for a 2 year old who loves to run around everywhere.
He had a really great time with all of the different exhibits, especially those he could climb into.

Maker Faire Detroit is in town this weekend for the annual event at the Henry Ford Museum. We headed out early so we could enjoy the morning at the event.
There were all kinds of interesting creations, from a giant and functional Operation game...
...and a dragon that drives around and breathes smoke.
As is the staple at geeky events, there were Storm Troopers. What you don't usually see is Lego Boba Fett, which was pretty awesome.
In the afternoon we drove up to Flint to spend the rest of the day with Adam and Comfort. We ate delicious crepes at Flint Crepe Company, took a walk in the rain, and enjoyed hanging out together. Huzzah for being on the east side of the state for the day!

We headed out early in the morning to Dearborn for the annual Detroit Maker Faire. This is the first year either of us have ever attended a maker faire, and with my recent foray into the world of Arduino, I was really excited to see what there would be.

The event is hosted at the Henry Ford Museum. The event uses both the parking lot and the museum to stage tables with various groups and vendors throughout.

As you can see, they even had a Life Size Moustrap set up. Now THAT is awesome.

We met up with Chris's dad, who regularly goes to the Maker Faire and several different meetups. 


There was something for everyone. They had lots of robots set up both indoors and out demonstrating various things (like Robot Fight Club by i3 Detroit pictured above). They even had a whole craft section with tutorials on knitting, crochet, spinning and more. I even did a little weaving!

My favorite by far was the power wheel racing, which Chris has photos of on his blog. He has a lot of good photos so you should check out his blogpost.

Next time I go I wont forget my SLR, that's for sure.



Since we were passing right by it, we decided to swing by Ikea. With the shopping pit stop we ended up back home around 11.

A long day but worth it.

Sunday marks the last day of Youmacon. The traffic flow was lighter, the lineup of events less intense, and overall the median age of attendees seemed to drop by several years. I even ran into a Naruto that I think was only 5.

Chris and I originally were going to watch the main event Potter Puppet Pals in the morning, but we waited in line for over 45 minutes past when the event was supposed to occur and finally ditched the idea and checked out of our hotel room instead. I dont know that the event ever occurred.

Later we went to watch Otaku Family Feud as it was pretty entertaining last year. But this year it was was a little lackluster and slow.

We did listen to more of The Spoony Bards for a bit, and even saw a random Carmelldansen circle.

Still, it was a good weekend and I look forward to how it pans out with the event being moved to the Renaissance Center next year in Downtown Detroit. Its a bigger venue, for sure. but how much space exactly will they be taking up?

The second day was the first and only full day spent at the con. Chris and I most of the day doing our own thing; people watching, enjoying elaborate costumes (even Nell in her released form), watching random panels and such.

The three of us spent a few hours in the afternoon watching Live Action Mario Party (based on Nintendo's game, of course), and Amanda even participated in one of the min-games doing a crab-walk.

We watched random audio/video tracks throughout the day, including Video Game Project 5 and some humerous mashups. I'd never spent so much time watching AMV's and it was well worth it. I'd only seen some AMV Hell videos before but some of these others were really funny.

Later Chris and I listened to The Spoony Bards (so named because of a censorship/translation issue from an FFIV game) play for a bit in a hotel lounge area on the first floor. They're always fun to listen to and play a range of geeky musical scores.

Youmacon is an anime con that occurs during the last weekend in October each year in the metro Detroit area. This year marks year five for the event and they continue to grow at a rate that they sometimes struggle to keep up with.

Amanda, Chris, and I arrived in the early afternoon at the Hyatt (where the event is held). We checked in, dropped off luggage, organized provisions and headed out onto the con floor.

Since it was still early afternoon the hotel wasn't overflowing with otaku - yet. We did see storm troopers though (3 total this year vs the lone 1 I saw last year).

I wanted to wander into the dealer room early this year, since last year I had difficulty finding a little stuffed Kirara doll (from InuYasha) I wanted. This year I managed to secure one early. I also stumbled across various odd Final Fantasy VII gear, like the above pic.