Maker Faire is at its best when you’re not just looking—you’re making. This weekend on Mare Island, you can solder a wearable EMF explorer, turn an old T-shirt into a braided keychain, build your own sock puppet, code a competition-ready robot, assemble a mobility device that will make a real difference, or even bring an AI-powered robot to life. Add leatherworking, jewelry, light painting, Tinkercad, creature-building, biotechnology, and a kombucha petting zoo, and it becomes pretty clear: there’s no shortage of ways to get your hands busy at Maker Faire Bay Area. Whether you’re a seasoned tinkerer or have never picked up a soldering iron, there’s something waiting for you to take apart, figure out, build, and proudly take home. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the workshops, activities, and demonstrations happening all weekend long.
Listen To The Hidden World Of Electronic Frequencies
The EMF Explorer Badge lets you explore the sound of electronic frequencies and see how many different sounds you can find in the world around you! This soldering kit is glowy, wearable, and easy to assemble! Solder together your own during one of our workshops and explore the sounds everywhere! How many different EMF sources can you discover? This activity is perfect for curious minds who want to learn how to solder and can safely handle a soldering iron. All ages are welcome but adult supervision is required for younger makers. Find out what its all about — and when — on the Foundry Floor. Schedule here.
Upcycle! Upcycle! Upcycle! And Make A Cool Keychain
Scatha Allison aka Ms Velvet Cream Neocoture has been sewing in 2003 in San Francisco, and is a self-taught clothing designer and has coming to Maker Faire for years with her truly fabulous upcycled fashions. And this year she’s on Mare Island to show your how to do it too. Head over the the Craft & Create Workshop area for a workshop session to DIY your own T-shirt into a keychain charm! Participants will knot their own charms — clips and t-shirt strips provided. Learn how to do a basic 4-strand braid and finish a personalized project beginning to end! Skill level- flexible. Kids are welcome, but youth ages 12 & under will need adult support. Find out where you can MAKE YOUR OWN.
Make a Sock Puppet. Give It a Life.
Come learn how to make your own sock puppet from scratch with Emmy Award-winning p/muppet designer Michael “Shoop” Schupbach. Michael has designed and built puppets for iconic productions including Sesame Street, Bear in the Big Blue House, Avenue Q, and Ms. Rachel. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn professional puppet-building techniques used in television and live performance while creating a unique puppet of their own to take home. Ages 10 and up are welcome, and the workshop is perfect for parents and kids to craft together. All materials are provided, and no previous puppet-making experience is required.
First You Build A Robot, The You Compete In The Olympics
Ready to turn circuits, code, and creativity into a robot that can compete? EASE Robotics is a free competitive robotics program for late elementary and middle school students—and this workshop puts you in the driver’s seat. Learn how circuit boards work, write code to control them, and put sensors, autonomous programming, and clever mechanisms to work. Then design and build your own competition-ready robot for the Robot Olympics. No boring robot kits with everything figured out. You’ll learn how the pieces work, experiment with your own ideas, and build something that can actually compete. Build it. Code it. Compete!
Make Something That Matters At Maker Faire Bay Area
Mobility Making Party is a hands-on social event where makers, families, and volunteers come together to assemble open-source Toddler Mobility Trainers (TMTs) for young children with mobility disabilities. Participants will directly help create life-changing mobility devices – and at the end of the event, families receive the TMTs built by the community. As Maker Faire celebrates 20 years, this Mobility Making Party highlights how the maker movement has evolved from building cool things to building real social impact through open-source assistive technology, community collaboration, and distributed manufacturing. FIND A TIME when you can use your skills to help someone regain theirs.
Build a voice-based AI toy
Build a palm-sized robot with a brain of its own—and take it home! In this hands-on workshop, you’ll build an AI-powered conversational robot that can be a toy, an assistant, or the brains for your next robot project. You’ll run the full Physical AI stack: create an AI agent, connect it to hardware, and bring it to life with real-time voice, vision, edge AI, and memory. Whether you’re into robots, AI companions, smart devices, or IoT, you’ll get practical experience—and leave with a working prototype you built yourself. Learn More.
Creatures, Creatures Come One Come All!
The Mobile Maker Club Creature Lab is where scientific thinking and creativity merge as participants design creatures inspired by real or imaginary ecosystems. As an environmental innovation space, this lab emphasizes hands-on sustainability by reusing discarded materials to explore waste reduction, material lifecycles, and resource efficiency. Through rebuilding and reimagining, participants shift from viewing materials as disposable to recognizing them as adaptable, functional resources. Through this project, young makers explore basic engineering, electricity, renewable energy, and creative design. It’s exciting to watch each student test ideas, solve problems, and customize their projects.
Counterculture Labs: DIY Biology and Citizen Science
Counterculture Labs has been coming to Maker Faire for over a decade and building cultures and community in the east Bay for even longer. Their take: Biotechnology has the potential to impact our lives as much or more than computers did in the 20th century, so everyone should get involved and have access to tools and knowledge if they’re interested. From mycology to micromitigation, kombucha to Covid they’re up for talking about it. And speaking of cultured creatures, visitors to the Foundry can visit the Kombucha Petting Zoo, see a running bioreactor, and check out our Agar Art!
Not only are there more workshops and activities in Leather-working, Painting With Light, Jewelry Making, and Tinkercad, you can build a model of a cell, exhibitors provide numerous hands-on activities across the different areas if the event, showing you their process and setting up opportunities for learning and inspiration.
Admission to Maker Faire Bay Area is required for workshops and is not included in the workshop ticket price. Learn more about when and where these activities take place on our SCHEDULE PAGE and about hands on activities HERE.
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