Make: writers, contributors, editors, and authors convene this weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area’s Show and Tell Stage
Have you ever wondered what’s in Jimmy DiResta’s pockets? Turns out, it’s pretty much what you’d expect: An assortment of pens, markers, and a carpenter’s pencil, at least one roll of duct tape, several knives and multi-tools, a flashlight, an ice pick, and more. The man carries a small tool box on his person! And he has great stories to go with much of it.
But you had to have been there. We know the contents of Jimmy’s pockets because, at Maker Faire Bay Area last year, Gareth Branwyn asked Jimmy to empty it all onto the table during a freewheeling Q&A at our author tent.
Jimmy’s back this year, and so is Gareth, part of the great slate of programming we have lined up this year for our Show & Tell Stage, the intimate space where you can meet your favorite Make: authors and editors all weekend long. This year, Twitch.tv is joining us to live-stream the whole thing, so if Jimmy tells another unforgettable story (and you know he will), you won’t miss it!
Of course there’s nothing like actually being there in person. Located in “Zone 4,” the Show & Tell Stage is the primary venue at Maker Faire for getting to know, learn from, and interact with the folks who create and contribute to Make: and write our books.
You won’t want to miss Make: executive editor Mike Senese, for example, hosting an end-of-day panel on making Make: magazine, Saturday and Sunday from 4-4:30pm, featuring the writers and contributors who create both this site and our bimonthly print magazine.
Friday, May 20
Friday@Makerfaire is when it all begins. A special half-day treat, Friday@MakerFaire is primarily devoted to giving school groups a chance to meet makers and understand that making is a viable profession for them to consider. Most of the stages at Maker Faire will be idle that day, but the Show & Tell Stage has programming all afternoon.
More than proving that making is a viable career choice, Terry and Belinda Kilby have their own aerial drone photography company and wrote our essential text, Getting Started with Drones. They’ll be at the Show and Tell Stage Friday at 3:30pm, Saturday at 12:30pm, and Sunday at 2pm to discuss the challenges inherent in building a drone from scratch as well as taking your questions about drone flight, safety, and pretty much anything else you’d like to know about UAVs.
Nick Kloski and Liza Wallach Kloski, whose Getting Started with 3D Printing is literally—no, actually—being rushed from the printer to Maker Faire for the weekend, are another couple partnered in life and in making.
Figuring that even if you don’t yet own a 3D printer, chances are strong that you will, and soon, the Kloskis will get you up to speed on what you might want to look for before you buy, cool things your printer can do, and other ways in which pretty much everything is about to change with the normalization—and rapidly decreasing cost—of in-home 3D printers. Catch Nick and Liza at 2:30pm on Friday, 2pm on Saturday, and 1pm on Sunday at our Show & Tell Stage.
Also appearing each day is educator Rick Schertle, a de facto launchables expert, who will demonstrate all manner of things that take flight. The author of Planes, Gliders, and Paper Rockets, Rick will show us his seminal 2008 Air Rocket Launcher (first featured in Make: Volume 15!) and how it is still an out of this world project that kids adore. Rick demonstrates on Friday at 3pm, Saturday at 1pm, and Sunday at noon.
Over the weekend, the Show & Tell Stage will fully power up with the majority of our writers and speakers taking the stage. Raspberry Pi evangelist and Getting Started with Raspberry Pi co-author Matt Richardson gives the lowdown on this popular single-board computer in two speedy 15-minute chunks on Saturday at noon and Sunday at 11:30am, respectively.
Don Coleman and Sandeep Mistry, authors of Make: Bluetooth, will demonstrate how to create custom Bluetooth services using Arduino libraries on Saturday at 11am and on Sunday at 3:30pm. (Rumor has it that Make: contributor and Make: Bluetooth co-author Alasdair Allan might join the lads for one or both presentations.)
This should be enough to convince the kids that STEM and STEAM are pretty cool, particularly when they meet folks who turn those acronyms into awesome things all day long.
Saturday, May 21
Saturday highlights include Make: contributing editor Caleb Kraft taking us through the build of his Flaming Sword project (12:15pm); Evil Mad Scientist Lab’s own Windell Oskay presenting on his Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Lab, a revamp of a classic 60s-era text modernized so that kids are no longer being asked to fill light bulbs with water but are still making cool lab tools and learning (1:30pm); Burning Man’s chief fire art safety team manager Dave X and Flaming Lotus Girls’ Caroline Miller glowing positive about propane in honor of the new book, Make: Fire (1:45pm); professional toy maker and Make: Fun! author Bob Knetzger unraveling the mysteries of those free toys found inside cereal boxes — and handing free toys out to the kids on the audience (2:30pm); and Printrbot founder Brook Drumm, author of our 3D Printing Projects book, showing off some of his favorite builds (3pm).
At 3:15pm, be sure to be at the Show & Tell Stage as Make: author and editor Gareth Branwyn convenes a panel with Make: founding editor-in-chief Mark Frauenfelder, YouTube dude Jimmy DiResta, and self-described “Queen of Shitty Robots” Simone Giertz. Gareth, who is currently writing a book for Maker Media on shop tips, promises a fun and informative discussion on the group’s best tips and where and how they learned them. Have you ever heard of the essential “Kenny Rogers Rule” of making? Well, you will on Saturday afternoon.
Make: fave Ponytrap joins at 4:30pm with his drumbot demo and the day ends with a Camp Couture Trashion Show at 5pm.
Sunday, May 22
Things continue apace on Sunday with information on starting a young person’s makerspace program from Start Making! authors, replete with a kids panel (12:30pm); Arduino co-founder Michael Shiloh discussing updates to Getting Started with Arduino (1:15pm); plenty of Lego and Mindstorms intel from Lego and Arduino Projects co-author Adam Wolf (1:30pm); Design for 3D Printing author Bertier Luyt joining us fresh from France (2:30pm); and Jimmy DiResta and friends closing the Faire talking about whatever they damned well please—the contents of Jimmy’s pockets included (4:30pm)!
We’ve got a lot on tap for the Show & Tell Stage at Maker Faire Bay Area and hope you come away with just one question: What will you make?
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