Outside the Orlando Science Center, during the Maker Faire, there was a constant line of children and adults waiting to use the human powered wheel. Ice Age is the company that created this technological wonder. It reminds me of a sketch Leonardo Da Vinci did in the renaissance of a human powered machine gun. Human-Powered Snow Cones are the brainchild of dreamer and inventor Joe Donoughe. To use the machine you would stand inside the barrel and walk or run. The motion would power a machine that would crush the ice which would then be dumped into a cup. The cup of ice would move down a small conveyor belt. Pulling a hammer would lower a flat metal hand which would pack the crushed ice down. Then the conveyor belt would move the cup to the flavor station where a pull on a leaver would add the bright colored flavor to the ice.
I would have to bet that standing in the sun and then exercising in the human hamster wheel would burn more calories than what could be gained from the cup of ice. As I was sketching the machine, the Maker Faire was drawing to a close. The line of kids waiting to get their human powered ice never diminished. At some point the line must have been capped so that the inventors could pack up and go home.
I walked around outside to see what other vendors had to offer. There was a giant red inflatable robot with an M on his chest which clued passers by that the Faire was happening. Paint the Trail was busy painting wooden fencing with hip pop personalities and sayings. There were wind chimes and hand fashioned flutes. I spent two solid days at the Maker Faire and honestly don’t think that I saw everything that there was to see.