In my role at RadioShack, I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced to the Maker community. This community is actually very similar to the online/blogging/entrepreneurial/startup community, with one difference. The make community builds things solely for the purpose of seeing if they can build it, or because they wanted to (as opposed to building things that you could possibly sell later on or generate money from). Sure, there’s some makers who are out to get rich, just like there are some in the other camp who just build stuff for kicks, but overall, that’s the difference.
A great example of building something just because you can is the Toa Mata Band. This ‘band’, built out of LEGO Bionicle bots with Arduinos and small motors attached to them, are the ultimate in teamwork. Individually, they’re quite boring, possibly annoying. But together, they make beautiful music. With a solid beat. Here’s their debut:
And here’s episode 2:
Pretty sweet, no?
Ricky Cadden 