Wear it! Festival

This mini festival was a weekend of exploring the world of wearable technology and it took place on Saturday12th and Sunday 13th March. I volunteered for both days sporting a plain but bright yellow t-shirt which I got to keep.

This event of course took place in our Museum of Science and Industry on the ground floor of the main building (Great Western Warehouse) from 10am until 4pm. There was plenty to see and do, it was fab. It was so nice to hear all visitors I spoke to say how good it was. A wearable technology festival conjours up images of blood pressure and heart monitors. Smartphone accessories, running monitors such as Fitbit and Garmin. Whilst this is true I was surprised that there was nothing like that here. It didn't even get mentioned. Lets now checkout all the wonderful stuff there was to see!
In the Textiles Gallery, there were a few things going on and I spent alot of time in here with great pleasure. The highlight was a workshop where you can sew an LED into a tote bag with a circuit board design. It was very popular and the seats filled up easily. This didn't stop myself and another volunteer from showing of the totes to visitors hoping to garner further interest. If I remember correctly, we ran out bags in the end anyway!

Also in the textiles gallery you could make a pair of 3D glasses from card and red and blue filters then look at these images.

Also there were some amazing 3D printing pens and I watched people print a selection of nice things. I want one! The are around £100 each.

This photo shows a police vest with the latest Kevlar technology and also here you could try out a virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift and travel around the world. I had a go, it was set to take us to Paris which I have yet to visit in person. It was fantastic and I asked what the app was as all you need for this is your smartphone. The app is Googlecard board and you can buy a cardboard headset from Amazon for £10. I am now the proud owner of a VR headset myself and have enjoyed visiting my favourite places.

Looking outside from this gallery into the main area you can see we had a marquee. There's a team of performers who can do impressive moves with LED laden hoola hoops and visitors could have a go themselves.

                                  In this last picture on the right you can see our Minecraft area. I was unaware as to what this game was never mind its great popularity especially amongst the young ones.



This photo n the left shows the main area where we had a soldering workshop where kids could make their own badge and learn to solder. It proved very popular and I helped to manage the queue. Even though we ran out bulbs everyone was happy! We hope visitors enjoyed this event and went away with a greater awareness of the uses and applications of wearable technology. I am glad I volunteered. Thank you MOSI xxx