M5stack has been available in Thailand for a short while now through our partners Gravitech, Inex and Thaieasyelec. It seems our fanbase is growing there, so we thought we would attend this years Makerfaire in Bangkok and see how our users are getting on with their M5Stacks and what the maker community is like in Thailand.

Bangkok Makerfaire is now already in its third year. It is an official Makerfaire with generous Backing from Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production,and the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), who obviously see its potential in inspiring the future engineers and budding entrepreneurs of Thailand.

There was a good mix of student projects focusing on sustainable and green tech, stem education startups, vr and ar and some interesting personal projects.

We arranged to share a booth with our distributor Gravitech this year, who provided us with a modest space next to the stage. The Bangkok maker faire starts in the afternoon unlike most Makerfaires. This is due to the simmering heat in Thailand.

Despite the late start we were still baking in the heat and maybe our black M5stack t-shirts weren’t the best choice for this weather.

Nonetheless there was a great turnout and a great buzz around the M5Stack Booth
and as the afternoon moved on the crowds increased

We heard that on the evening of the first day of the Makerfaire an electric parade had been arranged. This is apparently a staple of Bangkok Makerfaire and consists of attendants being decked out in lots of LED bling while traditional Thai music is played.

Despite the fact that we have made some nice LED costumes before for our youtube channel and the Makefashion runway shows in Shenzhen, We were ill prepared. However
we had brought along some nice long Neopixel strips which as some of you may know are super easy to program with Uiflow.

Within a few minutes, we had the Neopixel strip hooked up to an M5Stack with a flashing and pulsing animation and fashioned it into a costume so I could then join the parade.

The electric parade was a great way to end the first day and undeniable proof that there is a big interest in fashion tech. Fashion tech is an area we are also developing for, especially with the M5 Stick which is a light and easily programmable device perfect for attaching to your clothes.

The second day was much cooler than the first which we were rather glad about. An M5 Stack workshop had been arranged by our long time supporter Prof. Surapont Toomnark.
Prof. Toom as he prefers to be called, had written a manual in Thai especially for his students to learn M5 Stack and we were honored to see such dedication and appreciation for M5 Stack.

There was a great turnout to the workshop with over 15 adults and children in attendance. Prof. Toom did a fantastic job of introducing the M5 Stack ecosystem and the UiFlow programming environment and we were more than happy to provide tech support to him during the workshop. Kids an adults were excited to get a chance to try out M5Stack and some didn't want to leave.

The day rolled on and soon it was time to say goodbye to all the new friends we made here in Bangkok. We took a final picture with the Gravitech team and vowed to return for next years event.