Thank you, Glowforgers, for your dedication to bringing us phenomenal cosmic power. It was so much fun meeting the ones of you I got to meet!
I’m sorry to have missed other forum peeps, but I made it home with the 5 year old, so wooo! https://www.facebook.com/vettha/posts/10154216894504826
Great selfie with Dan!! So bummed I didn’t bump into you at the booth.
Glad you found your 5 year-old. 
I guess losing children at a Maker Faire is quite common. They even had wristband trackers for kids. I found a crying child at the Faire and helped her find her mom. I was shocked at how many people just walked by…maybe crying children is common too? 
What a terrifying experience for a child in a large crowd in an unknown location to feel abandoned. I’m a grandfather but can still remember the trauma of that experience as a child.
Good on you girl!
You always try to help the child but it is a tough situation for an adult male. You can imagine if a mother looks over and sees some guy taking their child by the hand. Even though they’re just trying to find mommy. It’s obviously easy if someone with authority is nearby or if you are with another person.
it’s sad but such is the world we live in. I remember almost getting in trouble keeping a little girl from drowning in the water cause her parents weren’t paying attention.
I’ve heard this story somewhere, now I wonder if you have told it somewhere else like Quara or if this has happened enough to have more than one person with the same experience?
Thanks to the customer support team, I’ve been able to create a separate account from the one my partner @BlakOpal has - I’m @trilo, the one who shot and posted the video from Saturday’s demo at Maker Faire. We went back on Sunday and I grabbed some additional footage, just to show what the lasers looked like as they were printing.
It’s worth pointing out that both of these units were running nearly non-stop and all day. As we chatted with @dan and Ken and a couple others at the booth, we watched several different visitors getting pieces engraved and cut, and the software performed pretty flawlessly. I didn’t shoot closeups on the UI/laptop screens, since they weren’t really facing forward and it wasn’t clear whether that was intended for public consumption (I’ve done enough software testing in my day to want to respect anything they considered pre-release). But there didn’t appear to be any hiccups or emergency moments, everything appeared to be working as expected.
Visitors seemed to really be enjoying making a thing out of something they designed (doodling or scribbling on the backing, and then having the laser scan that to create the piece that was engraved/cut). That kind of use is close to @BlakOpal and my own hearts, as inviting arty/creative friends over for laser nights is high on the list of things we’re interested in doing with Glowforge.
Thanks again to everyone on the team, not just for all the attention to detail on making a great tool, but in taking the time to participate in Maker Faire.
In that situation I will stop the closest female and ask them to take care of the child or accompany me as we find the closest appropriate place to leave the child. I’ll keep stopping women until someone helps. It’s a shocking indictment on today’s society that a male has to do that, but there you go, better safe than sorry.
That’s a lovely album, @elrond! It deserves its own thread!
(And for those wondering - my brother is a frequent guest singer with Pink Martini)
Yes, but there’s a small plastic part that contributes to the air assist that’s still being tooled, so it was turned off at Maker Faire.
An early prototype, yes.
He was so adorable! [quote=“trilo, post:47, topic:2259”]
it wasn’t clear whether that was intended for public consumption
[/quote]
We were showing it to everyone in the booth, but asked people not to shoot video/images because it just makes it easier for those who also build lasers and might be seeking inspiration from us to find it online. 
I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever brought it up before. it was me and two other guys: a biker and a Puerto Rican
Some things have improved. I’m a male preschool teacher. Many of us (the few of us that are out there) are uncomfortable in our role as a nurturer of young children, but there are child centers out there that are very supportive and create an environment that helps parents be comfortable with men around them. I was very lucky. I spent all day holding hands, hugging, reading with kids on my lap, and all sorts of other atypical male behaviors. My one male co-worker had a problem once in his toddler classroom in the 6 or so years he’s been there, but he is black and male, so it is a little difficult to know exactly where the prejudice was coming from.
Thanks for clearing that up. Be sure to show it off once it is ready!
Has to be one of those things that has happened more than once then.
Post-Faire info from the IU e-birdhouse booth (the project keeps going back and forth between NatureSense and other stuff; “e-birdhouses” is my least favorite option, but it’s what the project PI wanted for Maker Faire):
We had laser-cut birdhouse models (out of 1/8" Baltic birch and clear acrylic) to be able to show what the sensor packs would look like. Tons of people thought we were selling laser-cut birdhouses and wanted them. We know 1/8" or even 1/4" does not insulate sufficiently for use in Indiana, but either might (still waiting for word back from our ornithologist) work for California. They might be a good sales option for GFers who are interested, but PLEASE check with Audubon society, county extension, or birders in your area before making and selling them.
From this, though, a warning: if you use your GF for rapid prototyping or flat-pack versions for easy display, people will be interested in the laser-cut version of your thing, even if the final version will be made by some other means. Be prepared to either sell the laser cut version or have a good reason why you’re not.
More than a few people who stopped by mentioned “oh yeah, we pre-ordered a laser”, which led to Glow Forge discussions and making sure they’d visited the GF booth. Everyone was positive, and looking forward to getting their Glow Forge; even the one who mentioned the shift in ship dates suffixed it with a note of understanding and wanting things to be well-implemented and tested.
On the booth side: We got some sort of ribbon, a lot of interest in the project, some good contacts for far-field testing, and potential partners on both the tech and educational institution sides. I think we also made a lot of kids happy with our attractor element of making and decorating birds. Their parents might not be quite as happy–those feathers can get everywhere.
Altogether, it was a good Faire.
Software testing? I think that is what we all do on a daily basis when we turn the computer on. 