Maker Faire

Although many of the electrical goods and gadgets we buy today come in pre-sealed boxes, which makes it hard to take them apart and look inside, it's still possible to tinker in a hands on way with a lot of today's technology. The Maker Faires are celebrations of this sort of hands-on activity: have a look at the following slideshow to see what sort of things were on show at the UK's first Maker Faire in Newcastle in March 2009.

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One of the hacks that particularly caught Digital Planet reporter Angela Saini's eye were some "LED Throwies" - a simple combination of an LED, a small battery and a small magnet that you can use to create a form of (removable) electrically powered light graffiti!