Wheels and Trains and Motorized Things

"It's basically a festival for really nerdy things."

...That's what my husband told me as we drove to Dearborn's Henry Ford for the annual Maker Faire. He was convinced that I was going to be bored out of my mind, but I was under the impression that the Maker Faire would offer some arts, crafts, and other interesting exhibits that didn't only appeal to engineers. Well, I was sort of right.

I'm not gonna lie—the festival was kind of weird. Time machines, giant cupcakes, things with wheels and people in camouflage kilts and corsets made for an interesting setting, but the setup was anything but boring. No, I didn't necessarily want to spend 10 minutes talking to some guy about how he made an electric-powered-anything, but there was definitely plenty to look at.

One of my favorite attractions? The big, multi-rider bikes (I'm sure there's a more scientific name). We rode one through the festival as we terrorized camera crews and small children. Tons of fun, of course.

Another crowd-pleaser was the giant Mouse Trap, which I assumed before actually seeing the thing was just...a giant mouse trap. Like the kind you catch mice in, not the kind manufactured by Hasbro, which is exactly what it happened to be. This thing was intense, and featured a full-on domino effect where a bowling ball made its way through a series of contraptions. At the end, a safe fell on a car. 'Nuff said.

At some point, we decided to go inside the Henry Ford museum to cool down from the heat and look around for a little while. It was a quick trip (we plan on going back sometime since we bought a membership), but we did get to see several cool things. A few that stood out: the car JFK was assassinated in (yeah, I know it's kind of creepy), robots, Lego contraptions, and some huge trains. As if we weren't already in engineer heaven, right?

Back outside, we spent our last hour or so at the fair watching Power Racing, otherwise known as Grown-Men-And-Women-Scrunching-Themselves-Into-Tiny-Powerwheels-Cars. Pretty hilarious, actually, once the organizers got past the drawn-out commentary and the drivers got down to racing.

A nerdtopia, in every sense of the (made-up) word. In all the best possible ways, of course.