The 6th annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire is this Sunday, October 18th, in the Temescal district of Oakland. If you live in the Bay Area and like Maker Faire, you should consider making the trip. It’s smaller in scale than Maker Faire Bay Area for sure — 190 makers vs. 1,200 in San Mateo — but there’s also a lot fewer people. More hands-on making experiences. And still deep weirdness and creativity and Maker culture.
The East Bay show is famous for being kid-friendly, but there’s still hardcore hardware. Some to watch for: Emeryville’s Next Thing Co. and their $9 computer; MadeSolid 3D printer advanced materials co.; Google Cardboard; Seeed Studios and their RePhone open source cell phone platform will be there, shown below.
Also showing and telling is a full roster of Bay Area makerspaces and all their brilliance: NIMBY, American Steel Studios, Benicia Makerspace, Ace Monster Toys, Mothership HackerMoms, TechShop San Francisco, Counter Culture Labs, and The Crucible.
Experience one of the world’s only Crate Stacking competitions, where you can try out balancing on upside down milk crates while on belay off a giant crane:
Go ahead and try and break Larkin White’s 2014 record of 27 crates. GO AHEAD!
And then, in that fashion of Maker Faire, show your range and head on over to a Homesteader Stage replete with foodie geniuses like Swifty of Swify’s Pickles and Chez Panisse alum Chris Boswell on making meatballs.
Or maybe you’d prefer Women Under 30 in Robotics, featuring East Bay entrepreneurs and engineers Helen Lurie (founder, BitBeam), Rosanna Myers (co-founder, Carbon Robotics), and Lisa Winter (Plan X Battlebot).
(Lisa’s Battlebots robot PlanX will be there as a maker booth, next door to another East Bay Battlebot, Wrecks, as well as a whole scene of FIRST robotics madness.)
Another awesome presentation: artist/scientist Phil Ross (MycoWorks) on Making with Mushrooms. Phil will talk about his work on mushrooms from a materials point of view: how mushrooms can be used to grow many items that are currently manufactured using plastics and petroleum based composites.
And then there’s the projects. PROJECTS! Like Thad Povey and Mark Taylor’s Octoplayer. This marvel was simultaneously (and independently) dreamt by Thad and Mark in 2010 and the two subsequently collaborated on its design and fabrication. A central spine of copper plumbing couplers supports eight levels of vinyl LP’s and 45’s while eight tone arms reach out to track the manipulated grooves.
Check out the full roster of Makers (Make: will be there!). And the Schedule. So much #MakerGoodness.
Get tickets now before they go up — advanced prices are good only through midnight Saturday night.
See you Sunday at the Faire!
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