From my correspondent Tony Dixon

Maker Faire UK 2017 was held once again in Newcastle (UK). It's the oldest Maker Faire outside of the USA and over 10,000 happy visitors came to the Centre for Life science village to witness and take part in various making and science activities.
 
With over a 100 maker stands and performing artists, the breadth of activities was amazing and diverse with activities in art, coding, craft, gaming, music, science and STEM.
 
Drones were well represented again. Visitors had opportunities to fly them and groups such as Take Off RC on hand to offer advice.
 
The Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Teensy boards were common in many projects and there was also a hint of retro in the form of a Z80 based RC2014 platform.
 
No Maker Faire would be complete without the maker and hack spaces. Makers from Newcastle, Sunderland, York , Liverpool, UK Hackspace Foundation and Dublin. With members bringing along all manner of fun projects to show.
 
Astronomy was popular this year with projects from PiKon, StarPi and Constellation Umbrella.
 
There was a "radio meeting" feel to this year’s Faire. Makers could buy the latest components, modules and boards from CPC, Kitronik, Oomlout, ESR and Abx-labs. Tindie, the popular maker's independent webstore community were represented by Curious Electric, Dtronixs and PartFusion. As well as crowd funding projects from Ultimate Shortcut Keypad and TingBot.
 
Soldering workshops were popular with visitors both young and old. Beginner’s workshops included how to solder a blinky LED badge or for the more experienced visitor take the opportunity to sit down and solder one of the numerous electronic kits on offer for sale around the faire.
 
So to sum up: lots to see, lots to do and lots to keep you entertain and here's looking forward to Maker Faire UK 2018.