Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth — a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the maker movement.
Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these people come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.
Explore below to see the best of Maker Faire, and head to makerfaire.com for more information.
The day before Maker Faire Bay Area opened, we ran into Kurt and Bobbi Pires putting the finishing touches on a unique quadricycle in the South Lot of the fairgrounds. Dubbed Opabinia Regalis, the vehicle is named after an extinct Precambrian creature and has now been reborn as an angry, fire-spewing art bike.
During Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, we caught up with Lindsy Lawlor, creator of one of the most popular attractions at the Faire– Russell the electric giraffe. With the help of his English programmer, also named Russell, the rolling, walking, talking giraffe bot gets better every year with new sounds, touch sensors, and lights.
Brett Levine has been fascinated by fire since he was a boy, coming close to setting his house on fire several times during his learning process. His latest creation, the DIY Flame Tree, is a freeform construction of copper tubing with gaseous vents that can be lit for visual effect. Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 participants were invited to created their own additions to the work and then stand behind the fence to watch the pyrotechnic results of their labors.
Zachary Coffin‘s Colossus is a large-scale sculpture of wood and steel that holds massive granite rocks suspended above the ground. Ropes hanging from the rocks are pulled by attendees of Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, setting the entire seventy foot tall structure slowly spinning with great inertia.
Big news! Maker Faire has its own channel on YouTube. We’re publishing videos from our 2011 Bay Area and Detroit Maker Faires regularly over the next few months. We’re extremely excited and proud to share these maker profiles with you, so if you want to keep up to date on the latest, be sure to subscribe on YouTube.
East Bay Mini Maker Faire Call for Makers is open now through September 1, 2011. Makers, hackers, tinkerers, crafters, performers, workshop leaders, and artists of all ages from the eastern San Francisco Bay Area should get their application in now to participate in this 2nd annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire on Sunday, October 16th.
This week’s article is a request, well – it’s more like an open letter for astrophysicist, science communicator and Director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson to consider speaking at Maker Faire New York (or just being our special guest) Sept. 17 & 18 – New York Hall of Science.
