Maker Faire Preview: Maker Kids

Once again, The Austin Children's Museum has teamed up with event organizers to let your inner child (or actual child) get messy at this year's Maker Faire. After all, who appreciates making things more than the young at heart? ACM's Maker's Kids Area will feature parachute and kite making, free form woodworking, Lego robots, and hands-on chemistry experiments. The Texas Association of Minority Engineers will help kids make rubber band and mousetrap powered cars to test potential and kinetic energy. On Saturday, kid makers from all over Austin will be showing off their creations at the MakerKids Showcase. The inventive youth in our area have designed a remote controlled cooler, intricate paper ships, and an invention to make homework more fun. Architect and artist Scott Specht will be in the Maker Kids area to help build a Mega Model City at fair grounds.

Maker Faire will feature many other family friendly attractions throughout the weekend. Edible Austin is offering pumpkin painting at the Food Maker Pavilion and the Eepybird Diet Coke and Mentos! fountain will give everyone inspiration to play with their food. Kids of all ages can watch the 50,000 pound Life Size Mouse Trap squash all manner of objects. Big kids, take note: the Life Size Mouse Trap comes complete with its own Vaudevillian show featuring music and sexy mouse Can-Can dancers! The event will feature many hands on experiments and activities that the whole family can take home.

Maker Faire, a celebration of all things do-it-yourself, is taking place in Austin on Saturday, October 18th and Sunday, October 19th at the Travis County Expo Center. Discount tickets are available now through Friday the 17th at the Austin Children's Museum and at Whole Foods on Lamar.