Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024
My video on Bilibili: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bxU7YfEk4/
I discovered my passion for researching and gathering information, learning as much as I could, and following my curiosity about the world. Yet, right after this moment, I realized that I might be replaced by AI models, which formed a loop - going to such a fair gave me a deeper understanding of my passion, but the current technology development seemed to discourage me from another perspective: continual progression is what wins people's mind; not many people have the resources and time to explore the world. Practical products (or STEM-related things) may be boring (I felt very strongly about them before entering grade 12 or before entering Avenues) because they are very specific, tidy, and concrete, but they are practical; they have direct impacts on the community.
People say that teenagers' cognition is elastic, and I totally agree with that. The world is like a teenager, changing as fast as I am. However, from another aspect, the world I have seen may be a reflection of myself. Because I am curious about many things and become more open-minded yet more aware than in the past, I can take a critical and less judgmental lens to view the world. However, I am still practicing that, and I believe it will be a life-long topic to work on. Eventually, it reminded me of many concepts we learned in class. One vibrant example is a dichotomy. Sometimes, we are rushed to make decisions from a pair of opposite things. What if there is a third option? I keep thinking about it. In the past, I was not interested in solving hands-on problems while concerned about the world. I am more conservative in technology development. Attending the Maker Faire forum taught me how technological advancement can help with climate issues and benefit the human living environment. Isn't that one of my wishes? I thought. I hope the ecosystem can be better for all living organisms, but this idea only stays in my conceptual world. After listening to current advanced agricultural technologies and products, I realized that the problems need to be solved with actions soon for innovation. I also remember the concepts we learned in GREAT WORKS STEAM class last year, in which there are two primary attitudes toward climate crisis – wizard and prophet. The "Wizard" view leans more toward using the invention to tackle current issues, while the "prophet" view agrees more on reduction/elimination to solve climate issues.
I found that the forum (on Sunday afternoon, the theme of the forum was "Cyber Farms") was also beneficial for my STEM project because the presenters not only introduced their companies' products but also the global research and market of the product. I also did not read much news about the new technologies and their applications. Thus, through this chance, I become aware of the latest technologies and their progress in the field. In other words, I only realized that technology has advanced much once I listened to the presentations.
In addition to the forum, I also traveled around on Saturday, visiting the booths. I attended a challenge offered by Shenzhen InnoX Academy and visited five other projects that young innovators initiated; some studied at the InnoX Academy. I asked questions and interacted with the owners of the booths, getting information about how they developed the project and what the process was like. In addition, I also visited other booths that have innovative products, both mature products and newly developed demo versions of the production. Two of which I visited were impressive. One has exoskeleton products, which help older adults and people who are interested in hiking. It is impressive because some research I encountered while constructing my annotated bibliography was about exoskeletons. I did not realize it had already been a relatively mature product.
Another thing that impressed me was the design's intention. That machine can take photos of the surrounding environment and convert the image to audio. According to the booth owner, this device can help visually impaired people with their daily lives. Some high school students started their trials in the AI field.
Overall, I was very impressed by these experiences and glad to learn so much about a field I did not know. These days, I feel suddenly interested in learning to code and do not feel the time passing by in writing codes—I tried something I would never have done in the past and expanded my limitations again.
