Exploring the 2026 Maker Faire Orlando: A Journey Beyond The Villages

Exploring the Maker's Fair in Orlando

Welcome to Season seven of Open Forum in The Villages Florida, hosted by Mike Roth. In this solo episode, Mike shares his recent experience at the Maker's Fair in Orlando, Florida. He discusses various exhibits and activities, such as learning to solder, making t-shirts, robot battle zones, and the Nerdy Derby. Highlights include the Boston Dynamics robotic dog, electric sander racing, the National Association of Electric Vehicles exhibit, and the Star Wars and science fiction characterizations. Mike also provides useful resources for 3D printing enthusiasts and electronic tinkerers. The episode concludes with a call for listener support and information on how to connect with the show.

00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:57 Hands-on Computer Club and Maker's Fair Introduction
01:51 Exciting Exhibits and Activities for Kids
03:25 Robotics and Interactive Displays
09:07 Science Fiction and Cosplay Highlights
11:14 Outdoor Activities and Entertainment
12:12 Main Stage Talks and Demonstrations
13:26 Unique Finds and Recommendations
16:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Exploring the 2026 Maker Faire Orlando: A Journey Beyond The Villages"

[00:00:06] Nancy (2): Welcome to Season seven of Open Forum in The Villages Florida. In this show, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in The Villages, Florida area.

We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters. 

[00:00:29] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. Today we're going to do another unusual show. It's gonna be another solo show with me alone, and I'm going to be talking about an experience that I had yesterday at the Maker's Fair in Orlando, Florida. Now, this is very unusual because it's not in The Villages, but it was in within about an hour's drive of The Villages and.

Some of you may not know, but I've been a member of the Hands-on Computer Club here in The Villages for the past eight years, and I built several microprocessor type projects and the leader of the club fellow named Yang Chen, suggested that for years that we visit the Maker's Fair in Orlando.

Well, they bill themselves as the greatest show and tell on Earth. It really was a big show. There were about 14,000 people there on the Orlando fairgrounds. It was both an indoor and an outdoor, exhibit and interactive play area for children. And there were a lot of activities for children. For those grandparents who were listening, great thing to take your kids to there, we will have a heck of a day.

There was everything from knights in shining armor doing sword fights to giant skeet ball machines. Everything that kids and adults of all ages would like. The areas were

divided up into things that people could do. They could make a shirt, make a t-shirt, make a design on a computer, and then it was printed out onto a shirt. What I loved to see was the Learn to Solder area where they had about 20 stations lined up and they were teaching young children, you know, eight years of age and up how to solder.

They had a booth where you could make a button. One of the biggest areas in the, in the, in the hall was. A area called Take it Apart. This is where kids were given things like old Xboxes screwdrivers and tools, and they were sitting on the floor and they were told to take it apart into the components.

And then they also had something called the Nerdy Derby that was an outdoor racetrack where you raced cars that were nerdy. Now. It looked like an ROTC unit had set up two big tents and there was an obstacle course inside each tent. and the players had to fly a small drone aircraft through each one of the obstacles.

The giant skeet ball again was, was very interesting. 

There were a lot of robots there of all kinds and shapes. One of the ones that interested me most because I had never been close to one, was one of the Boston Dynamics robotic dogs. It was seen on America's Got talent, yeah, this one wasn't quite as animated as the ones on America's Got Talent, but it was clearly the same model.

And you know, it was run by a operator, although he did have a semi-autonomous or full autonomous mode, the robot had a working life of about a half hour before the battery died and it would walk around and. Look at people pretend to be sniffing. Lay down in front of you. It was, a fun thing to watch.

For those of you who were into robots, they had robot battle zones. They had small robots and large robots, and they also had a. Series of demonstrations and contests between various classes of school, children, elementary, middle school, and high school students, each who were building robots to do a purpose.

And they were demonstrating those robots in the building. One of the most interesting things from a nerdy point of view, was an electric sander racing where they had a race course for electric Sanders. Also they had a, a great exhibit. From the National Association of Electric Vehicles, and they had a representative there talking about what their club does.

It's a national club, but they also had a 1974 fully electric car. It kind of looked like a prototype of a smart car that Mercedes probably put a, a gasoline engine in, and later in the last run of that model, I guess, put, batteries in.

Now they did have a main stage with speakers in a room that could seat about 250 people. Universal Studios had people there, and they were talking about how they use robotics and animatronics in planning and operating their parks. I remember one question that someone asked was, well, how do you find the valves and servos that you need?

And the answer was, well, you get a Granger catalog, you know, one of those thousand page catalogs, and you put it in your bathroom, and every time you use the bathroom, you open the Granger catalog to understand what parts are universally available and don't have to be built again. Because it's much cheaper to buy those parts than to buy a part that was done in a Harvard study in 1984, and then they built one of 'em, and then to try to build that yourself.

They also had a, a launching area for homemade rockets which was nice. They had a food area. They had a lot of different food booths which made, made that interesting. There was a building called the Opportunity Building where they had artists and authors, they had music making apparatus.

One that, which I found interesting was a kind of a, a jungle gym that each bar in the jungle gym was connected with a electro conductive, coding to a computer and every time you touch the bar, you got a different song to play. And over time, the songs on the same bars changed. Very interesting device.

They had 3D printers. Of all shapes and sizes, not as many as I would've liked to see, but some of the 3D printers were actually engraving in metal a miniature if you would, CNC machine. And they had people actually working, showing how to work wood. And then there were the, there was a. A lot of, I'm gonna call them.

Well, let's take a short break and listen to Dr. Curtis for about a minute, talk about Alzheimer's, and then we'll be right back with another exciting part of the Maker's Fair.

This is Mike Roth and Dr. Craig Curtis. We're talking about Alzheimer's disease. Let's talk about the, Omega-3 and Omega six. How should people get that from their diet? 

[00:08:15] Dr. Craig Curtis: Well, primarily you should get that through. Beans and nuts and legumes and fish. 

You can take a supplement of Omega-3 omega sixes, however, don't overdo the supplementation of Omega-3 specifically.

There was a large study published by the American College of Cardiology a few years back that seemed to show that people that took too much Omega-3 might have an increased risk of a heart arrhythmia. So my recommendation is if you buy Omega-3 supplements, take it as written. 

[00:08:47] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr.

Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismd.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar. 

[00:09:04] Mike Roth: Thank you, Dr. Curtis. 

There was a whole area of the Makers Fair that was devoted to, I'm gonna call them science fiction characterizations. It went from everything from several exhibits that had replicas of Dr. Who's Tardis, that was a British telephone booth. There was a number of. A doctor who dialects.

Those were robots. And they had some working models and they had people actually assembling some, robots. The next area was kind of a Star Wars area where they had people with fully assembled operational R2D2s and they were showing how they built them and , they had been taken apart so you could look inside and see the various components and servos for building your own R2D2.

Now for the people who were transformer fans, they had a whole bunch of booths with transformers for people who were Iron Man fans. They had full suit size Iron Man, and they had a guy there who was making Iron Man helmets out of PLA type of plastic and other printable 3D printable parts.

And he was building. Helmets. There were also full-sized transformer characters. There were, there's a, actually, there was a human being inside the character, but the character was about eight feet tall and it was walking around talking and playing with the kids. It was a very interesting exhibit.

They had probably. Eight or nine Star Wars villains. And these were people in costume who were in a booth and you could take a picture with them. So that was a very interesting part of the show.

Now , for those people who were a little younger and wanted to race around, they had a p outdoor power race course where they had things that looked like advanced go-karts, going around a circular oval. And you could ride in the cart for a feet naturally. They had an outdoor band and a luncheon, seating area tent where they had bands playing.

 They had a lot of cosplay characters there. And people dressed in cosplay costumes and people who were selling the various components of those costumes. Now for people who were fans of Ghostbusters, the Orlando Ghostbusters were there and they were wearing their Ghostbuster uniforms and had their cosmic packs on their backs.

Very interesting Booth.

Back on the main stage, they featured some talks on BattleBot building power racing, and they had a nerd Night Orlando trivia contest.

They did talk about how to make props. And the last thing they did on Sunday was a Orlando story of the Maker's Fair in Orlando. The Maker's Fair Orlando was an independent organization and is operated under a license from the Maker community. The project is funded in part by Orange County Government through its arts and Cultural Affairs program, the Maker Fair Orlando is produced as a program of the Maker Fair Foundation.

With the support of their sponsors, proceeds from the Maker Fair directly benefit the maker a community of Central Florida. And believe me, there was stuff there of all kinds and descriptions. I. The robot battles were interesting. They usually had two announcers and they had two robot arenas, so there was always a match going on.

[00:13:26] Mike Roth: They had all kinds of stuff for sale and for years as a amateur electronics tinkerer myself, I've always run into the problem of how do you remove solder on a component so that you can clean out the holes and. solder a new component in one. One Fails. Well, I had never bothered to buy a solder removal tool, which I found at the Maker's Fair, for a mere $4.

Couldn't go home without it.

They had at least two different styles of dialect that they were working on, both the original and the the secondary one. 

There was a couple, things I wanted to mention that I thought was really great. Being a little bit of a 3D printer myself and a creator I discovered a software called Print Split, which takes large 3D objects and. It cuts them down to small sizes that can print into with your 3D printer, and then you could fit together those parts.

It's called print split.com, P-R-I-N-T-S-P-L-I T.com. It's a free open source software and I would highly recommend it from the results that I saw.

And the the folks that had a lot of parts and surplus electronics, whether they were more servos drivers or de soldering tools, was a company called Skycraft Parts and Surplus. And their URL is www.skycraftsurplus.com. They're in Orlando. Their phone number is (407) 628-5634. 

The robotic dog was, was a big hit with all of the people. Oh, yes. And I can't forget to talk about the skunk mobile now. I can't believe why someone would've done this, but they took an old pick up truck and. Built out of sheet metal and wire, a gigantic black and white skunk on the top of the, the truck that went over from the tip of the hood all the way to probably four feet in back of the tail.

And they had lights on it. I guess it was still street legal 'cause they drove it there, but. It was quite a sight 'cause it had a big, big eyes and, black body, black and white tail. A very interesting, I'm gonna call it funky skunk.

And that was one of the first things that you saw when you walked into the the fair. 

So it was a good experience, about an hour from The Villages. They do it once a year. I recommend it to anyone who has kids or has an interest in the, science fiction world, from Dr. Who to Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and everything else in between.

I hope you, enjoyed this review of the . Maker's Fair in Orlando. We will be to you again next week.

 Listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project, to bring knowledge, inspiration, and things you need to know about Villages and the people living here. Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week, or you can hit the purple supporter box.

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[00:17:28] Nancy: Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9:00 AM Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com.

This is a shout out for supporters. Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich and Dr. Craig Curtis at K 2 in the Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help.

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