A happy, fluffy unicorn is too predictable for Laine Munzberg. On Saturday, hers breathed fire.
Munzberg, wearing a "Mother of Unicorns" T-shirt, watched with pride as Pele, the flame-exhaling unicorn, entertained children at the fourth annual Mini Maker Faire in North Little Rock.
Put on by the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, the festival encourages curious people of all ages to get outside, conduct science experiments, play games and invent things.
Before Pele became "the stuff of nightmares," it was an old carousel ride for sale in a secondhand shop, Munzberg said. After spotting it, Munzberg, an accounting manager by trade, enlisted a dozen people to help turn the metal horse into a fierce-eyed unicorn with a working flamethrower in the belly.
As flames poured out of Pele's mouth, an animalistic sound resonated over a speaker. The recording was of a horse neighing in fear, but played in reverse to be extra nightmarish, Munzberg said.
Pele is named after a Hawaiian goddess of fire and an album by singer Tori Amos, Munzberg said. She got the idea after watching a video of a fire-breathing dragon. And her daughter was already involved at the Innovation Hub, which had piqued Munzberg's interest in designing and building things.
"She can do it," Munzberg remembered thinking. "Maybe I can do it, too."
In the afternoon sun Saturday, children and parents meandered from Pele to drone races to outdoor games. Festival organizers set up "life-size" versions of chess, tick-tack-toe and Jenga.
While involved in a precarious game of Jenga, an 8-year-old named Luke danced around the tower, willing it to "fall on Grandma! Fall on Grandma!"
The tower collapsed, and so did Luke. He flopped on the ground in defeat and piled wood blocks on his chest.
"We're having a blast," said his grandmother, Linda Arthur.
Jason Seritt and Dakoda Baker manned the drone station. With Air Force backgrounds, "We were both immediately attracted to flying robots," Baker said.
To build a drone, a person needs skills in soldering, math, and fabrication and a good mentor, Baker said. To fly one, a person needs situational awareness, patience and good hand-eye coordination, Seritt said.
"And willing to crash a lot," he added.
Across the festival grounds, Chris Campbell asked children to please not touch a Lego display that won "Best Humor" at the 2016 Brickworld Awards.
The display was of a glue factory, complete with Lego horses stepping up to a Lego conveyor belt to meet their Lego doom.
"I guess it depends on your sense of humor," said Campbell, a member of the Arkansas Lego Users Group.
At another table, professional tinkerer Jason Quail displayed robots he created to make up for his human failings.
"I love drawing things, but I can't draw," Quail said. So he made a robot to do it for him. On the table, a machine gripping a Sharpie marker quietly sketched the DeLorean from the Back to the Future movie franchise.
Another robot that resembled a mannequin's head swiveled when it detected motion. And another bot's sole purpose was to switch the "on" switch back "off" as soon as it was booted up. Quail had labeled that creation, "Something useless."
For Quail, robotics isn't a hobby. It's his life.
"My house is totally, 100 percent tricked out," Quail said. It resembles the movie Smart House, "but without the bad tendencies," he added.
(In the 1999 film, a computerized home manifests itself as a holographic housewife, goes berserk and locks the family indoors.)
Children and adults marveled at Quail's table, which was representing a larger group called the Idea Factory of Northwest Arkansas. It's a "hive mind" right now, Quail said. He hopes to get a dedicated "maker space" soon.
But for Saturday's crowd, his vision was simpler. Quail wanted them to look at "this pile of cobbled parts" and think, what can we make?
Metro on 05/13/2018