Maker Faire Bay Area coming up!

So, I got to go & here is my blog post on some of the highlights I saw: http://bit.ly/MakerMaker

Overall, I would say it was an amazing place.

Two of my colleagues also posted a number of picture on their Twitter accounts:

• http://twitter.com/Intel_Jim
• http://twitter.com/Intel_Stewart

Did anyone else go?

Here's the Time Lapse Photos that @Intel_Stewart took of our booth:

You don't have permission to edit metadata of this video.

Edit media

Dimensions x Small Medium Large Custom

Subject (required) Brief Description Tags (separated by comma) Video visibility in search results Visible Hidden

Parent content

RE: Maker Faire Bay Area coming up!

Poster

Upload Preview

Ok

Cancel

I was there saturday by myself, and sunday with wife and daughters...

Good to hear from fellow Maker Faire attendees!  This was my first & an incredible experience.  I had no idea how massive it would be.  I could have used a whole week and probably not have seen everything.

Unfortunately, I never came across the Intel, but the time lapse is a great idea.  Thanks for the links to the tweets.

Aside from all the cool gadgets & inventions, a big highlight for me was spending time in the Learn to Solder tent with Mitch Altman (TV-B-Gone inventor & Noisebridge founder; http://www.tvbgone.com/) and Jimmie Rodgers (LoL shield creator; http://jimmieprodgers.com/).  Over 3,000 people learned to solder over the weekend and got to go home with a nifty souvenir they created with their hands and the confidience to tackle more complex kits & projects:

http://twitpic.com/1ru36h

Another highlight was the Hackerspaces panel on the Maker stage which was moderated by Mitch Altman.  It was great to see the leaders of spaces from around the country.  My local space, Pumping Station: One (Chicago's Hackerspace, http://pumpingstationone.org/), was represented well on the panel by our founding member Eric Michaud.

http://twitpic.com/1qgsga

The most awe-inspiring display I saw was 'Soma' by the Flaming Lotus Girls:

http://twitpic.com/1rbm89

Also, got to see the wonderful hackerspaces out there Noisebridge & Hacker Dojo (in Mountain View).  I thought Noisebridge (https://www.noisebridge.net/) was immense and then I visited the Dojo (http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/)

which is insanely huge - basically 2 story office building:

http://twitpic.com/1qrfvn

I'm still posting backlog of Maker Faire photos at:

http://twitpic.com/photos/pdp7

I'm really pysched for Maker Faire Detroit & New York this year.  I need another DIY fix bad =D

Drew

~pdp7~

Great time lapse! Too bad I missed Intel.  Will you be at Detroit or New York Maker Faires?

Drew

~pdp7~

Personally, I don't know if I'll be going, but, to be honest, we were VERY impressed with the show & are strongly looking what would be good to do at future shows...

@fustini -=- Any recommendations? What do you think we should do?  Robot Races?

Well, you can never go wrong with racing robots! And it is Detroit so vehicle theme is fitting.  What types of groups were you thinking of getting involved?  High school students like FIRST or maybe university students & DIY/maker/hacker adults?

My local hackerspace, Pumping Station: One (http://pumpingstationone.org/) initiated a supped up Power Wheels race which will be held between hackerspaces across the country at Maker Faire Detroit: http://pumpingstationone.org/2010/04/pumping-stationone-power-wheels-featured-in-time-out-chicago/.  It should be alot of fun!  I think some of the teams are getting close to 30 mph!

BTW, are you local to the Bay Area?  I totally fell in love with the region & have been keeping an eye on airfare ever since I got back

-Drew

@pdp7

What do you think we should do?

I've been to all of the Bay area Maker Faires...

I think chip makers and real distributers (like Farnell/Newark) have a hard time representing themselves at an event like Maker Faire, largely because the target audience of the Faire is essentially hobbyists, an audience not traditionally well serviced by the professional community.  The team that should be sent to Maker Faire is not at all the same team that you would send to ESC, for example.  (Sun was at several Maker Faires with their "sunspot" platform, looking rather out-of-place, I thought.)

This is a shame, because frankly, hobbyists have it better now than ever before.  A sub-$100 order to Newark from an individual works just fine, and the current trend in very low-cost CPU evaluation boards (STM8S Discovery, Atmel Butterfly) and/or show-off boards (Freescale BadgeBoard) is just lovely.  In some sense, the whole "Maker" movement is about "hey, you CAN buy state-of-the-art chips and build something with them, even if you're not going to sell millions/year."  So here are some ideas for "what to do":

1. Use any existing "educational" liasons.  The other focus of Maker Faire is Education, but it's primarilly beginner education rather than university-level education.  (thus the wildly well-attended "how to solder" classes.)  Still, the whole "this is how you could use XXX products in your YYY classes" is pretty close to the what you might want at Maker Faire.
2. Sponsor and/or put "reps" in existing Educational booths.  FIRST Robotics has a lot of sponsors in general, right?  Plus mentors and etc?  Did any of them put people/info in any of the FIRST robotics booths?
3. Sponsor and/or "seed" hacker spaces.  Drop in some of those cheap eval boards and see what gets done with them.  Then drop a person and a bunch of stickers in their booth to advertise the vendor/distributer.
4. Leverage internal "Makers."  Surely in a company the size of Intel (for example) you have employees that have "side projects" that involve doing something neat that involves your own products.  Have an internal contest for the most Maker-faire-like project, and send that person to the Faire as reward.
5. Dispose of leftover swag.  Got "MCU Day 2009" or "ESC 2010" totes and/or literature and/or other swag?  Re-use of "junk" is a major sub-theme of MF, and it would end up in happy hands.
6. Copy successful booths.   Microsoft has done really well figuring out how to do MF.  Wolfram Research does well.  Both are examples of companies that probably had to think about it ...

I thought this years placement of Intel and Microsoft (outdoors next to automotive companies?) was a bit strange, though...