An epic naval battle of amazing proportions! “Amazing” being miniature and “epic” being, well, let’s just say we had to wear eye goggles. Really! The incredibly talented seamen hand-crafted the robotic warships and controlled them from the side of Maker Faire ocean with radio remote controls, shooting 1/4″ diameter steel balls from their ships’ torpedo tubes. The ship models are replicas mostly from World War II, but one brave soul brought out his tiny pirate vessel. The battle known as Axis vs. Allies, meaning that all the ships had at some point in history fought for either side, in World War I or II. Founded in 1986, Western Warship Combat Club puts on all kinds of events, as we learned from Dan Rygasewicz, a founder. Dan also said that if you have ever put a firecracker in a toy boat in your bathtub, you will know exactly why playing with toy boats in the water is so mesmerizing.

Episode links: Western Warship Combat Club, Maker Faire

Travel with us back in time, back to Victorian days when men wore corsets, ladies wrote letters and the computers were steam-powered. What?? That’s right! Steampunk takes you back to a past that never was, and flies you in a dirigible to a future that will never be. What is steampunk? Take a look and find out!

Episode links: Steampunk [wikipedia], Steampunk Airmail Letter Project, Artist Suzanne Forbes, Maker Faire

The GETV crew ran into Utilikilt clad Alex Peake at Maker Faire because of a rumor that he was making Tactical Corsets! With beautiful model at the ready, Irina and Alex unzip the mysteries of this military grade corset. What’s a tactical corset you ask? Here’s how TacticalCorsets.com describes them:

Tactical Corsets are high-fashion, high-function clothes for empowered women! For too long, women have had to compromise practicality for beauty. Men got pants with cargo pockets and built-in knee pads, women got clothes whose only built-in feature was cuteness. But why should men get all the high-speed low-drag tactical toys? Tactical Corsets bring female operators MILSPEC features like MOLLE modular pouch attachment webbing and self-adjustable quick-release buckles in a load-bearing carrier designed to support the female form.

(Thanks to our guest editor, Wilfred Galila, who is hovering above the thin line between good and evil and in constant pursuit for the understanding of the human condition and man’s place in the cosmos.)

Episode links: Tactical Corsets, Alex Peake, Artist Suzanne Forbes, Cimmerians

Which comes first, the music or the video? The question is moot now that artisan Ben Lewry of Visionary Instruments, has built an LCD video display into his guitar. After several prototypes, his custom video guitars now can run visualizations or movies by simply popping in a USB thumbdrive into a back panel. Visualizations can even be triggered with MIDI signals by playing the guitar. Steven Wilson, of Porcupine Tree, was so taken by Ben’s designs that he’s now rocking a video guitar to sold out shows around the world.

Episode links: Visionary Instruments, Porcupine Tree, Diane Nitschke [photos], Maker Faire

It’s true. The future is here. Really. Anything you can dream in 3D can be made real. MakerBot’s affordable Cupcake CNC, a slightly larger than a breadbox 3D printer, will take your 3D modeled dreams and make them manifest. MakerBot’s Bre Pettis, a man who knows how a lot about making robots and dreams come true, gives Irina the skinny on what MakerBot is and how it works.

Episode links: MakerBot, Bre Pettis, Thingiverse, Google SketchUp, Blender, Forkbot, Martha Vader, Maker Faire 2009