Maker Faire Bay Area 2012: Day 1

TechNinja — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:36:18 +0000

(Continued from Maker Faire: Day 0) In no time, the first real day of Maker Faire was upon us, and we were as ready as we could be for the onslaught of wonders.

First things first, we set off to the Fun Bike Unicorn Club racing area to prepare our pedalcar. The D, our driver for the "Flying Fishmonger", was out in spades right off the bat, ready for the qualifying run. Once brakes were checked and the chain stayed on long enough to run around the track a few times, we were ready for our first race! Even though we'd only spent about $80 and 2 weeks building it, we thought it held up pretty well. Even though by the second race our rear drive tire completely blew out, it was still a lot of fun and we wouldn't trade it for the world. The overlapping CD fish scales were also very popular with the crowds of people coming to ogle the incredible pedalcars.

Due to a fluke of failed communication and our family in the middle of moving to a new house, we didn't have a schedule this Maker Faire, so we decided to head out and see as much as we possibly could. Out on the grounds, Sylvia found two of her favorite hackers/makers, Joe Grand and Zoz Brooks of Prototype This! Joe even recognized her and everyone got some stickers.

At the Craftsy "Make & Take" booth Sylvia made herself a stylin' star-and-ribbon-wrapped headband, then off to the FYFFH booth where we made our own "Freak Flags" to fly, then over to Autodesk to get a 3D head scan at their super camera photo booth. After a quick snap, we ran into Jeri skating around with her hard rocking Commodore-64 Bass Guitar, then we found our good friend Gever Tulley (we first met at DML). Sylvia and little sister Talulah sat down at his Brightworks booth to try the "Tinker your way out of this!" challenge. After totally winning (really!) we hopped around the corner where we learned all about simple binary computation with 8-balls and wooden flip-flops at EMSL's Digi-Comp II.

Outside, we ran into so many amazing sights, too numerous to count. A spiral sculpture of fire, a robotic band playing every instrument imaginable, a life-size Dalek from Doctor Who, a towering 50 foot tall flaming umbrella tree, electric vehicles galore, a giant rubber and steel fire breathing dragon, and then an EVEN BIGGER than life-size Dalek!

Throughout the day, Sylvia worked on collecting her "photoception" picture-in-a-picture shots with previous Maker Faire phenoms... Saturday got her John Park with his Arduino Grande (3 years), Dale Daugherty (2 Years), Jeri Ellsworth with her C-64 bass (2 years), and Lenore Edman of EMSL (2 Years)

Our first day of Maker Faire was outstanding, and we just couldn't wait to see what day two had in store! Learn all about our adventure in the next action packed blog post soon...

Holiday Gift Guide 2011

TechNinja — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:05:42 +0000

Our latest Make Holiday Gift Guide is now out! Check it out at the link and let us know how you like it. It's a bit shorter than last years, but still quite fun.

Be sure and leave a comment, and remember that even if it's a bit too late to grab these in time for you favorite holiday, any time is a good time to get the maker you love a fun kit or make a custom personalized thingamawhatzit.

Also as news goes, we'll be ramping things up a bit in the new year with more blog posts, more full episodes and better organization (we hope!) so that more people can get the help and inspiration they need to "Get out there and make something!"

Be sure and leave us a comment here if you'd like to see something cool or just want to say hi, or use the submission form above. We read everything and get back to everyone eventually.

Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show! - fire

Maker Faire Bay Area 2012: Day 1

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Holiday Gift Guide 2011

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