Over the Top: A Brief History of 21st Century BattleMechs
When historians of the future look back on the history of giant mechanized robot warriors, they’ll say it all started with BattleBots.
maker faire bay area
Handmade Wooden Wall Clock Keeps Surprisingly Good Time
While cleaning out an old laptop’s filesystem back in October, David West discovered a few videos he took of a mechanical clock atop the South Ward Meeting Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Years before his digital find, he worked in that very building and became so interested by the clock’s movement that he recorded several […]
Why It’s so Hard to Make Humanoid Robots
Building humanoid robots is hard. It may be surprising, but humans have upwards of 21 senses to master, three of which — balance, proprioception (knowing where your body parts are in relation to each other), and kinesthetic sense (knowing how to move those body parts in relation to each other) — are integral for moving […]
Voltera’s V-One Prints 2-Layer Circuit Boards
Several weeks ago at Maker Faire Bay Area, I caught up with Voltera co-founder Alroy Almeida to learn more about the Voltera V-One, a conductive ink printer. The V-One is a slick device. Not only does it extrude conductive ink, but it can also be configured to deposit insulating ink, enabling two-layer board fabrication. […]
Cutting, Drilling, Sanding, and Printing with Dremel at Maker Faire
With a full range of tools and projects for all attendees to test out, the Dremel booth at this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire was non-stop action. Groups of people gathered to build their own derby cars, using multiple Dremel machines to rough-cut blocks of wood, drill holes, sand the edges, and attach the 3D-printed wheels. And others […]
Making Clothes from Scraps at Swap-O-Rama-Rama
Swap-O-Rama-Rama has been at Maker Faire Bay Area every year since it first started. They are always a hit and this year was no different. During the weekend, every station was packed with people eager to experiment with clothing alteration and learn new skills. There were stations for just about everything, including learning how to use […]
This Analog Arcade Machine Uses 500+ littleBits Modules
We talked to Kristin Salomon and Paul Rothman from littleBits about the littleBits module system, BitLabs, and the towering analog arcade machine, built from over 500 modules, they brought the Maker Faire Bay Area.