The Exploratorium is holding their annual member holiday party and shopping night on Sunday, December 7 from 6-9 p.m. We’re excited to be there to show off some of our kits, including the EggBot, which will be available for sale. You must be a member to attend (need an excuse to become a member?), and RSVP by December 4.
We’re excited to be bringing the EggBot back to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire on Sunday, October 19. The schedule of presentations and performances covers everything from “The Importance of Junk” to minestrone making. The list of makers attending covers the gamut as well. Evil Mad Scientist readers get a 15% discount on advance tickets using the code MAKERFRIEND.
We ran into Mike Szczys of Hackaday during the final Electronics Flea Market of the year a few weeks ago. Afterwards, he came by the shop and has now posted a nice writeup about the visit.
Maker Faire can be a pretty demanding environment for a project. Outdoor locations expose many projects to the weather, prototypes may have been unpacked and repacked by the TSA, and curious visitors may handle projects in new and unexpected ways. Or maybe ambitions were greater than preparation time, and the project just didn’t quite get finished before the fair opened. No matter what the reason, Maker Faire is a great place to see people in action fixing, troubleshooting, and finishing their projects. Below are some beautiful projects I caught in progress at Maker Faire New York.
The FirePick Delta pick and place machine was a victim of the TSA, and arrived less functional than when it had been packed. The team was working on it valiantly, which also provided opportunities to get a closer look at many of the components.
Components not in use were repurposed for holding down business cards in the breezy aisle of 3D village.
The maker of this robot arm soccer game was opening up one of the control boxes to check on a malfunctioning knob.
He had no shortage of willing testers after the repair.
This half-scale 3D printer assembly was at least as charming in its disassembled state as it would have been all put together. It is great to see the components along with the kinds of tools that are used to assemble and repair projects like this one.
Gertie the robot had seen quite a bit of action, first at the Bay Area Maker Faire and then in New York. Her actuators were apart and in the middle of repair when we came by.
This let Alonso show us the mechanism and demonstrate how the internal frame worked to lean and make Gertie jump in different directions.
Maker Faire exhibitors are generous with sharing tools and materials with each other, and visitors are treated to what are typically hidden activities. No one whisks away a broken prototype to hide it out of sight. Instead, the guts are happily spilled out for everyone to see and learn from.
Maker Faire was a whirlwind of an experience, and here are a few highlights from our trip. Above is Wayne Strattman’s Nixie Rex, a giant scale handmade seven segment nixie clock. Each tube is about two feet tall. A “normal” sized nixie clock is on the table in front of it for scale.
This constellation quilt was made with glow in the dark thread by Haptic Lab.
Sometimes the simplest activities are the most satisfying. Contruction Kids let everyone leave their mark on Maker Faire by hammering into the wall of nails.
The Power Racing Series was joyfully providing great entertainment for the crowds.
Gertie the robot’s creator Alonso is demonstrating with an oversized model how the frame inside the squishy case can move around to make her jump in different directions.
There were many memorable moments from Maker Faire, and the ones we managed to capture with our camera are in this flickr set.
Next weekend, September 20-21, we’ll be at Maker Faire New York at the New York Hall of Science. I will be participating in the Making Makers panel on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 on the Make: Live Stage, and Windell will be helping out at the Let’s Make Robots booth and will be bringing along an EggBot Pro.
Our friend Romy Randev of Looma is having his first solo exhibit at Jeff in San Francisco. The show features interactive pieces which utilize our Octolively modules and runs through July 30.
Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the Silicon Valley STEAM Festival today. Above, a mobile shark tank from the San Francisco Bay Marine Science Institute.
One of the interesting aircraft on display.
Some of the many electric cars.
Space-rated carpet treads on a mini-lunar rover to help it get traction in loose dust.
A Lotus from TechShop San Jose with a Young Makers banner on the windshield.
You can check out the full set of pictures on flickr.
Inspired by the global hackerspace movement and (software) hack days, Kids Hack Day is a 1-day event held in various locations around the world, where children and adults come together to “hack” and make new uses of every day items.
This incredibly charming video from the Kids Hack Day kickoff event in Moscow on May 25 shows you what it’s all about. (And, we are tickled to see our own WaterColorBot and EggBot making little appearances as well.)
Addie and Whisker of @tymkrs just posted video from their recent epic road trip including a visit to our shop. The video starts off in Colorado and wends through Arizona before getting to the bay area. After stops including the Internet Archive, the Electronics Flea Market and HSC, they arrive to tour our shop (starting at 11:53) before wrapping up at Tindie. We had a great time talking about the Eggbot, WaterColorBot, Digi-Comp II and miscellaneous vintage mechanical and electronic contraptions.
