science for the win! the star center team heads to cincinnati for the makerfaire!

October 7th and 8th, two members of the STAR Center Team (Kate and Riley) were at the Cincinnati Mini Makerfaire. The first in a long line of outreach events scheduled for the STAR Center Initiative, the duo emphasized that the faire went extremely well.

"At first it felt kind of like we were a bit out of place, standing next to all of these established makerspaces and huge organizations, but we just ended up having a ton of fun explaining to people what we do and how science is a part of their everyday lives."- Riley

Although extremely busy with their own booth, the team took some time to explore all of the other cool stuff going on at the makerfaire. With makers drawn from all across the region, there were nearly 150 participants, and foot-traffic totaling in the thousands! A VR booth setup by P&G, aquarium tanks and 3-D printers were among the top hits at the event. The makerfaire team had some especially cool activities lined up, with paint balloons and a liquid nitrogen explosion that sent ping pong balls across the whole fairground! 

"I think the coolest thing I saw at the makerfaire had to be the R2-D2 robots. I totally nerded out when I saw that they were RC and could actually move. Awesome!" noted Kate, adding, "It was a phenomenal experience for us to be a part of. There were so many interesting things going on, and we were thrilled to be able to share our message with that many people."

Kate and Riley, along with several other members of the team, have already started planning for the Louisville makerfaire at the end of this month. We're all super excited to see how it goes!