Maker Faire

I heard about the Maker Faire on NPR about a year and a half ago, and immediately thought of Jon. He wants to have summer projects with our kids (when we have them) where he helps them make pretty much whatever they want. (I am kind of jealous of our kids. I'll have to see if I can get in on that action.)

I am not as technical about it, but I also sometimes prefer making things to buying them. I don't do arduinos, but if I see something expensive that looks within my grasp to make, I'd way rather make it. (As evidenced by my bookshelf, which was way, way harder to make than I expected, but still awesome.) for example, I like my fingerless gloves but I want some blue ones that are softer. That would take forever to find, but it's pretty easy to find soft blue yarn and learn how to knit them. (Current project.) I don't like making things just for the sake of doing it (see: crafts), but I sometimes like using my own means of production to get things I want.

Anyway, the point is we both like making stuff, so we went to the Maker Faire. It was fun to watch Jon get excited about things, and it was fun to see all the tools that are out there. My personal favorite was the station that showcased how to make your own haunted house stuff (i.e., how to make a plastic skeleton look like it's actually been pulled from a body, etc. AWESOME).

Jon, making a circuit out of blocks:

 Me, with umbrellas that were maybe conducting electricity?

 STATIC:

 Lots of hanging metal strings:

 Let's make this, Jon. Maybe in the kitchen:

 A giant dinosaur that breathed fire:

 Giant bicycles:

 DAVE EGGERS SPOKE AND I HEARD HIM. (This was awesome in general, but he was talking about very local things, not anything he's published or anything. He wants to start a maker coop downtown in SF and was looking for input.):

A CNC machine. Like 3D printing, but cooler - instead of spitting out a melted thing to harden in the shape you want, it carves what you design into whatever material you use (I am pretty sure). Jon taught me the basics of SolidWorks once, so now I TOTALLY know how to design a box with a hole in it.

Aaaand, here is my Halloween stuff! Just a fraction of it.

I am pretty sure our posts won't usually be this picture-heavy, but since I'm posting off of what we have pictures of for these intro ones ... that's what you get. haha. Here are a couple videos we took at the Maker Faire. First, a glowy, mobile robot shark:

And a Tesla coil light show:

We know you all want to come with us next year.