 The East Coast RepRap Festival is over and my family and I had an amazing time. But sadly, it's the last East Coast RepRap Festival we're ever going to go to. Let's talk about that. My name's Jim and this is The Edge of Tech. So this past weekend, my family and I flew out to Baltimore and then drove into Bel Air, Maryland for the East Coast RepRap Festival, also known as IRF. We really had an amazing time. It was the first time that my little guy had ever been to one of these shows and as far as my wife goes, it's been a few years since she's been to one. And I gotta tell you, it is becoming more and more family friendly every show we go to, which is really cool. The whole show was just absolutely amazing from the vendors to the exhibitors to the different races and it was really enjoyable just pretty much the whole weekend. They had over 2,000 people come through the door and you can see how busy it was on Saturday while I took five minutes to actually sit down and eat a piece of pizza. Speaking of my little guy, I didn't know how it was going to go. He is three years old and he'd never been to something like this. And if you know three year olds, they don't exactly focus on one thing for a super long period of time. But there was so much for him to see and he absolutely fell in love with the droids. I believe it was the mid-Atlantic droid builders that were there and they had a whole bunch of droids from R2-D2s to BB-Aids to all of the ones I can't name because I don't remember the names. But they were there and they were interactive and while I was setting up my table, he found that booth and fell in love with them. I am talking, it didn't matter where we were the whole weekend, he just wanted to be by those droids. We could go anywhere else and in five minutes, let's go back by the robots. He's three, he's literally the size or smaller than some of these robots are. They are life-sized to him and it just lit up his world. As you can see, he wanted to start a dance party and he did which was super cool and he danced with those droids all weekend. As a parent and as a fan, it's just absolutely awesome that the magic could happen for him like that at a show like this. So I'm so glad you guys came out. Thank you, thank you, thank you because you really did make his weekend and probably his year. He is still talking about how he danced with BB-8 and the R2-D2s that shot the lightsabers out of his head and all the things. So it's just, you made such an impression on him and I can't thank you enough for that. Another amazing thing that happened is that Steve, Ryan and Kim over at Offset Maker Lab came up with just a crazy design for a death racer for me. So I sent them a whole bunch of filament and they said, we'll take care of the rest. But here's the thing, I didn't get to see anything until Saturday morning before the first race. And let me show you exactly how that went. I filmed it on my cell phone when they actually revealed it to me. Let's check it out. What's up guys? I am here at the East Coast RepRap Festival on my phone because I haven't had time to get the cameras out and it is crazy. I'm hoping anyone can hear me what I'm saying. But these guys have something special for me and I want to check it out. Alright, let's see this bad boy. I'm super pumped. I'm ready. Oh jeez. What? This is amazing. Oh my god. There's a bamboo printer. There's me driving. Oh my god. This is so awesome. Oh yes. Hot mails. Hot mails? Gotta have the hot mails on there. Let's see. There you go. This is so awesome. Thank you guys so much. I'm afraid to race this. It's gonna be awesome. Thank you so much. Oh there's a toilet. I didn't even see it. Alright, thank you guys so much. Offset Maker Lab. You guys rock. I'm gonna get some more B-roll with the real camera, but this is amazing guys. Thank you. So as you can see, I was super surprised when this came out from under that table. I had no idea what they were going for, but I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be something like this. This is just everything the channel is from the edge of desk across the top from the computer because that's what I do for my day job as I'm an IT person. From me sitting on a golden toilet or toilet as you should say, to the hairbrush, to the spilled water here with the little Oreos, to the polymaker filament. This was all made from polymaker filament, lots of polymaker filament. And there's little polymaker filament boxes here. To the bamboo lab printer that's in the back here with an opening AMS. So that was pretty awesome. Of course, the edge of tech logo is on the side and the Geary from the Hot Makes show as my weapon of choice will say. Now this was turned more this way for the race, but I should have had it like that to like smack people, you know. Also, you'll notice that this does have the Mecham wheels and it is super crazy to drive. I didn't even drive this until the first race. And for being 100% honest, I was so scared to drive this thing. I did not want to break it. I did not want to break it at all. We can't forget the really cool picture in the back here of John, a tripod's garage and the real San Prentice here on the back of the machine too. With the Hot Makes or Hot Males inside joke there, but they have a Hot Makes and a Hot Males plaque in the back. And that actually covers up where your battery goes and everything plugs in there. These guys just really thought of everything. The whole thing is a desk like I said and it's hydro dipped to look like wood. They went way above and beyond and this thing weighs like probably 10 or 15 pounds. It's so heavy. But needless to say, I did not win any of the races this past weekend because I was too chicken to actually go beat this thing up. I wanted to get it home in one piece. I wanted to drive it more and use it in races coming up, but it was so nice and I didn't want to wreck it. So thank you guys so much at the Offset Maker Lab for putting so much time and effort into this thing. It means so much to me and I can't even express how thankful I am for this. This is pretty cool. Speaking of the death racers, here's some footage while I'm talking. I didn't get a lot of footage of the death races, but it was so much fun. A lot of people came, a lot of people left with broken death racers at the end because there's a battle to the death on Sunday. But it was a lot of fun and every time we go to one of these events, the death racer community, the teams around it, we just grow closer and have more fun with each other and it's just a blast. So if you're ever at one of these events and you want to build one, definitely do it. It is a ton of fun. And this is where I thank today's sponsor, PCBway. They were a big part of the death racers and Sam, Tripod and I really appreciate everything they've done. So if you're looking for a PCB, maybe a custom 3D print in metal for the gears or something like that for your death racer or even some CNC work, look no further than PCBway.com. They can help you finish that project up and get you ready for the next event with the death racers. Thanks PCBway for sponsoring this video and also being a big part of our Murphy event. Another cool thing I participated in was the sponsor Derby Race. I don't have any left in front of me to actually show you physically in this video, but while I'm talking I'll show you some pictures of the amazing model that FixumDude actually came up with me last Wednesday. I had one day to print and we printed them out and went out. The whole thing was so much fun. People just loved them and we took third place overall with one of the racers. So that was a lot of fun and I really appreciate your time, FixumDude, for putting that together like overnight really to make that happen. It was a blast to race as you can see in some of the videos and footage that's going on behind me. And my little guy Tristan just loved watching the cars go down the track and watching them finish. And we had such a blast as a family for that too. So FixumDude, thank you so much for that. I also got to say a huge shout out to Sir Will himself from the bamboo team who came out and pretty much manned my booth the whole weekend hanging out with that A1 Mini. We were the only one in the building to have the A1 Mini and there was just absolute positivity and fandom and people just interested in that machine all weekend. He talked nonstop pretty much Saturday and Sunday about that thing. We showed off prints. We put it into ludicrous mode and we did some really cool stuff there. Sir Will, thank you so much for coming out. It was amazing to meet you in person and thank you for manning the booth. I hope we meet again at another event and bamboo lab, thank you for letting me bring the brand new printer that's not really released yet to the event so people could check it out as well. So after the death racers there was drag racers as well. The top fuel 3D printed drag racers. Scott from the edge of 3D puts that on and it was a blast. The drag racers are so much fun and nobody let me drive theirs at this event so I didn't wreck any this year but I just wanted to show you a little bit of footage while we were talking about that because that's always a fun event. I love the dragsters and the chaos they can cause when they go crazy so it's so much fun. Another thing to check out if you're going to go to one of these events and you don't want to do a death racer. A dragster is a lot less printing and definitely as much fun. So admittedly I didn't have a lot of time to take much footage of the event. I was running around making announcements and doing all sorts of fun stuff. Hanging out with the family and just trying to keep up pretty much for the weekend. But I wanted to show off some really cool stuff so here's a little compilation of some of the cool stuff that I saw at the East Coast RepRap Festival 2023. Let's check it out. There's some really cool stuff there and I hope you guys enjoyed that. Just a quick brief overview of some of the really cool stuff you can see at these events. And the last thing we need to talk about is that the East Coast RepRap Festival will not be coming back next year. That's right, it's done. The East Coast RepRap Festival is over but they are changing and going forward with 3D printopia. So this is kind of a controversial thing a little bit. I think some people are a little upset and some people are happy and I fall in the happy side. I say that because to be fair not a lot of people within the last five years who started printing say in the last five years know what RepRap is. So when you have an East Coast RepRap Festival, you have a Midwest RepRap Festival, you have a Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival. It all is just kind of together and they're all amazing shows. They all have individual features and tons of fun. But the people that don't know what that is usually don't come. I don't feel like it's all inclusive because a lot of people don't know what RepRap is. So with 3D printopia, it's a 3D printing festival. It's everybody's welcome from the RepRap days to the new days. Everything 3D printing. Not just I'm going to make my own printer and have a printer print itself and stuff like that. I'm talking about anybody that does anything with 3D printing is welcome and I really think it's going to reach a wider audience and make the event even bigger. So while we're still going to have the Midwest RepRap Festival and the end of June usually and the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival in April, 3D printopia will be the new event that's in September, October timeframe and I cannot wait going forward to see how that event goes. So congratulations Chris, Vicki, Nick, the team over there at 3D printopia for an amazing weekend, an amazing time. Thank you guys for having me as the MC. Thank you for being amazing hosts at the event and I wish you the best of luck going forward with 3D printopia where everybody's welcome. Everybody's going to know what it is. 3D printing in a whole. We're all going to come together and just have a blast for a weekend. I hope you have a great week. Thank you guys for sticking around this long in the video and if you haven't seen this one, check that out.