Mini Maker Faire: A Big Kid’s Show and Tell The opportunity to see invention and creativity at its finest awaits at the sixth annual RI Mini Maker Faire Festival. Rhode Island’s innovators will come together to showcase their creations for the public on Saturday, October 11 in Providence, and the event will feature everything from robots to custom pinball machines. It’s a DIY science fair billed by the organization’s website as “The greatest show and tell on earth.” The whole movement began with Make Magazine, a bi-monthly publication out of California that began in 2005. The first Maker Faire festival occurred in Silicon Valley in 2006. In the ensuing years, the movement has spread around the county, and the festivals have even popped up in places like Rome, Tokyo and Santiago. According to the founders, “Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students and commercial exhibitors.” The first festival in Rhode Island started with Kipp Bradford and Brian Jepson, who were both involved in the national Maker Faire movement. Jepson works for Maker Media and Bradford serves as an advisor and is a maker in his own right. They saw the Bay-Area maker events and wanted something similar for the Ocean State, so they started RevolutionxDesign, a non-profit with the express purpose of putting on the Maker Faire event. The first festival took place in 2009. For the past few years, Maker Faire has been presented as a small part of AS220’s block parties, and in 2011 as part of Waterfire. But increased interest from the community and the creators’ desire to grow made expansion a possibility. “We’ve been wanting the Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire to be its own event since the beginning,” says Jepson. The event is still sponsored by AS220, but this year it will take center stage. The most notable thing about this year’s festival as compared to past years is the size; there will be more makers than ever before, and the festival will take up far more space. It will have three main locations: in front of Hasbro’s downtown building (across from the Dunkin’ Donuts Center), along Adrian Hall Way (between Fountain and Washington) and at AS220’s 115 Empire space. The offerings will include a showcase of Hasbro’s new Play-Doh creations, products from the Providence 3D printing community, and a coin-flipping machine (with manhole-sized coins!). But this list barely even scratches the surface, and the only way to see everything the mad geniuses from RI have produced is to show up on Saturday. Champions of the entrepreneurial spirit young and old should not even think about missing this event. Even if you’ve been before, this year is sure to have something new in store. It may even inspire you to become the next great maker! The Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire will take place in Downtown Providence on Saturday, October 11 from 11am – 6pm. CD Review: Ryan Adams’ Self-Titled Album Ryan Adams has made a career doing pretty much whatever he wants. As a young man, he became an alt-country icon, mostly for his work with his band Whiskytown, but has since gone on to explore a variety of genres, even making forays in punk rock and metal. His new album, Ryan Adams, marks the 39-year-old’s 14th solo album, and with the three Whiskytown LPs, the total adds up to a staggering 17 LPs of material. This album shows a more even-keeled Adams dealing with middle age. The leadoff single, “Gimme Something Good,” is a possible reference to Adams’ career almost being cut short by his Meniere’s disease diagnosis (“All my life, been shaking, wanting something/holding everything I had like it was broken”). The song’s organ intro brings to mind Tom Petty (think “Refugee”), which makes sense because Petty’s longtime organ piano player, Benmont Tench, plays on the whole album. About “Gimme,” YouTube user “southrules” commented that “We all knew it could happen and it unfortunately has: Ryan Adams and Bryan Adams have become one.” This sarcastic remark actually holds some truth; he hasn’t gone full-on power ballad, but listen to the jangly, poppy choruses on songs like ”Feels Like Fire” and tell me “southrules” is way off base. Historically, Adams hasn’t been amused by the comparison, but in a way, he seems to be becoming the thing he once rebelled against. The more upbeat tracks besides “Gimme,” including “Am I Safe” and “Stay With Me,” sound like Eagles- y guitar jams, songs you would listen to if you were going for a summer cruise in your convertible. It all seems very safe for such a boundary-breaker like Adams. The vibe makes even more sense when you consider Adams’ explanation for the origins: “I would go in with a couple bros at seven o’clock and just jam. We would like, smoke a bowl and drink some tea – and the words came free-flowing out of me.” But his departure into ’70s radio rock isn’t entirely a downer, as the album has plenty of high points. “Kim” is a stirring, up-tempo ballad about a lost love, and shows Adams is still capable of arousing the emotions of even the most jaded indie listener. The album’s highlight is “My Wrecking Ball,” an incredible folk tune inspired by the death of his grandmother, which harkens back to early classics like “Come Pick Me Up.” At the folk fest, he prefaced the song with “This is a protest song … protesting the death of my grandma.” Also evident on the new album is a sense of slowing down, which is no small detail for an artist known for breakneck prolificacy. In “Shadows,” Adams questions his mortality (“How long do I have here with you?”) and wonders about his potential (“Tired of Giving Up”). And his recent headlining slot at the Newport Folk Fest lacked any aspects of the tantrums for which he is well-known. Adding to the new sound, Adams has a brand new band playing on the album, one that even includes Johnny Depp on a few tracks! It seems like he’s trying to relax instead of break new ground, which for other artists would be a bad thing. Over the course of his career, he’s challenged himself to evolve, sometimes with mixed results (see 2010’s Orion), and perhaps this new brand of soft rock is just the next chapter. The album doesn’t have to twang of the Whiskeytown records or the driving edge of rock ‘n’ roll, but as a solid entry in the ongoing saga that is Ryan Adams, it’s certainly worth a listen. It’s not his best work, but that’s what you get when you’ve released seminal albums like Cold Roses and Heartbreaker. Hey, Muggles — It’s Quidditch Time! It’s that time of year again; the leaves start to fall, apples are ripe for picking and young people start running across open fields on broomsticks, hurling a deflated volleyball through hoops. Don’t be alarmed if you happen to come upon it; it’s a real sport! That’s right, athletic Harry Potter fans in the Northeast are gearing up for the next season of Quidditch. Unless you’ve lived in the rainforest for the past decade-and-a-half, you probably know that Quidditch is the premier wizarding-world sport, dreamed up by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter Series. What you may not know is that there are people who play a real-world re-creation of the game, known to the public as Muggle Quidditch. In this part of New England, Muggle Quidditch is represented by the India Point Ashwinders and the URI Rhody Ridgebacks. According to Harry Potter lore, the sport is named for the Queerditch Marsh, thought to be the site of the first ever game. A cranky witch named Gertie Keddle lived near the marsh around 1050 and recorded her account of a mysterious game some pesky wizards were playing near her home. The game’s origins in the realm of reality are a bit less mystical; the game was first played in 2005 when Xander Manshel, then a freshman at Middlebury College in Vermont, was bored one Sunday. He and his friends laid the groundwork of the game that day, and later that year, the first game snowballed into an entire intermural tournament with seven teams. The Ashwinders and the Ridgebacks compete with seven other Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts teams in the Southern New England Quidditch conference (SNEQC). Each team plays about 11 games between September and March, capping off the season with the SNEQC Cup. With less than smooth beginnings, the Ashwinders persevered, independently funding and organizing their squad after being rejected by their university. The Ridgebacks were founded by five students in 2010 and have grown to 25 members. In the wizarding world, the score is based on points scored by throwing the main ball, known as the quaffle, through one of three hoops on the other team’s side. Each team has three chasers who are responsible for handling the quaffle, two beaters who protect their teammates from the dangerous bludgers (flying balls), a keeper to protect the goals, and a seeker to fly around and search for the golden snitch, which is worth 150 points. Unfortunately, everything on this planet is subject to the laws of gravity, so the game had to be tweaked a bit for human play.