Just throwing this out there…
This year, Maker Faire Detroit is July 29th and 30th at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, MI.
Will you be there?
Are you interested in a small meetup?
I’ll be there on Saturday, the 29th.
Thanks. 
If you’re going to be there this Saturday, be sure to read my post about the meetup. Basically, we are meeting at the McDonald’s sign at 11.
I wish! I was there every year while living in Michigan as part of All Hands Active. It’s one of my favorite maker faires, and you can’t beat the Henry Ford museum as a venue!
I’m curious about this one, but it will be a stretch for me if 
has no presence there. Now if a MI owner gets their unit by then, and will be presenting, I will move mountains to be there. I probably won’t have any Cat Coins by then for buying at the table, though. 
Awwwww I was at the NY one
I put my order in for the Basic with filter on October 20th, so it’s possible I will have mine by then, but I will not be presenting. Whereabouts in Michigan are you?
Grand Rapids
I see. That is a little bit of a distance, but not too far of a drive. 
It is an ok day trip for a good cause, though I must say that I never visit Detroit unarmed. (To be fair, I attempt as much as possible to never be unarmed anywhere, but I’m more adamant about Detroit.)
I’d like to encourage you to make the trip to Maker Faire despite any reservations you have of the area. If you’ve never been to THF museum, that alone would be worth the trip.
Well, very seriously considering it, for now. Have to confirm calendar and everything, and I can’t do that until later.
Been to Greenfield Village AND Henry Ford, but long time ago, back when Autoworld was open AND new.
i try not to cross the border much but it’s pretty close…
Went to both as a middle schooler in the late 60s -early 70s. Many fond memories of.facinating engineering.
As I live in Dearborn this will literally be in my backyard. At this time it looks like my wife and I will be there. Timing of this event has been bad for us the past three years.
While Glowforge will not have any official presence for this fair, I really hope to have my Pro unit by the end of July.
Maybe, all of the Glowfolk that will be attending can find a time and place to meet. I’d be willing to host something at my house the evening of the 29th if anyone would be interested.
I’ve got my tickets for Maker Faire Detroit. Hope to see other Glowflok there.
I raced my modified power wheels car (yep the plastic cars little kids drive) twice out at Detroit Maker Faire. Won’t be going this year though…just race at the Kansas City one last month but we can’t take off work due to an audit … maybe next year (and hopefully I will have my Tesla Model 3 before then too!)
Nice! I have a reservation for a Model 3 as well. Estimates place my delivery late next year, so I doubt I’ll have mine by next year’s Maker Faire.
Hopefully, I’ll see you at next year’s Maker Faire Detroit.
After the issues my dad had with his Tesla P85D I’m not really a fan of there products. While the car was insanely quick, the rest of the product was really poor. The interior was not comfortable and simple things like the placement of reading lights in the head liner did not shine in the passages lap, but rather into their eyes. This is just one example of poor design, I have many more. The “auto pilot” failed resulting in his Tesla rear ending a car that stopped in front of him.
The real killer was paying $125k for the vehicle new and only being able to sell it for $84k seven months later with only 4k miles on the car
For my dad this car was his dream, he had imaged since high school that he would see flying cars in his lifetime, but this was the most advanced product of the day and he was so disappointed.
Now, onto my pet peeves about electric cars in general. They are NOT environmentally friendly. The environmental impact of mining the materials and manufacturing of batteries is huge. The pollution created to generate the power need to charge the vehicle far outweighs the emission of most gas cars today, not to mention there is no cost savings over gas, if you are charging at home. If you drive cross country (more than a few hundred miles) good luck finding places to recharge. If you’re like me when I drive more than a thousand miles in a day, I don’t want to stop for an hour or more every time I need to fuel-up or in this case recharge. The final kicker, the process to “recycle” the batteries when they reach the end of their life-cycle is yet another environmental down fall. If anyone thinks any electric vehicle is environmentally friendly, please do your home work.
i agree that tesla interiors are nowhere near what they should be for the price tag of the car. literally any similarly priced car is in a completely different league - like, the model 3 will probably have the best interior value of the line simply because it’s going to be similar quality and not a million dollars.
well thank goodness we have you to inform us about how environmentally damaging electric cars are. they will still produce uniformly fewer emissions that a gasoline car unless you get power by burning coal or oil, which is less than a third of US homes.
cost savings vs. gas depends entirely on electric rate - for example, i live in ontario, which has a favorable cost per energy ratio for electric vs gasoline.
if you have a tesla and want to go cross-country, it’s pretty feasible. other cars are certainly more of a slog, but this will be a lot better, i suspect, once VW’s government-mandated charging network gets put into place.
recycling is better than ever, especially because these car battery packs are being recycled into house batteries - which are useful on a much longer timescale than the density dropoff in a car.
85% of commuters drive fewer than 50 miles round-trip. long-distance trips are, on average, rare, and for many people a better option would be just to rent something.
not to mention the capabilities that electric cars unlock, like serving as emergency power during a blackout, lower average maintenance needs, etc. and all of the other benefits are just going to keep going up.
of course, much of the current upswing in electric car research got its footing before obama’s increased cafe standards, which have helped spur efficiency improvements in traditional gas-driven cars.
as you say, everyone should do their own research. it just seems like a lot of heavy criticism for something that can easily be explained away with an electric car wasn’t sufficient for your needs. everyone has different needs…just like how the glowforge isn’t the right laser for everyone, but for many, it’s just great.
I think this is starting to go off-topic here. If you’d like to continue the Tesla/emissions discussion, I suggest posting a new topic for it.
I’d like to keep this topic on Maker Faire Detroit related discussion. Thanks.