Maker Faire was very very popular this year. I spent about an hour in traffic, and another hour trying to get parking. Amazing! Resolved: next year, 1) take public transportation (it’s right next to Bay Meadows) and 2) I’m getting there when it opens!
Getting there was worth the wait though. The Neverwas crew was there with their 3-story mobile Victorian house, and this time the steampunk element was in force, including Steampunk Magazine. They had musical acts (Abney Park), a bar, and artifacts on display, like a monitor that looked like it was made out of brass (no power cords).
I did much better this year in that I did not generate more projects for myself; I only added tools to work on existing ones.
TechShop had a pavillion; I had a chance to attempt converting my vector file into a Janome “.jef” file– I brought my laptop with Illustrator along with a jump drive. No dice, however: the computer was severely overwhelmed by the file; I believe the pattern had way too many lines in it.
The Diet Coke / Mentos guys were there and put on a “concert.” There was a guy with a working replica of R2D2, which was awesome. There was an entire carnival with rides made from bicycle parts, all run off of human power.
The Long Now Foundation was there with their new bearing design, which they say will rotate only 30 times in 1000 years. The clock is now self-adjusting, using a “memory wire” and a ray of sunlight once a day.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the RepRap project uses goo that is biodegradable. I also had an interesting discussion with a lady from Wikipedia about why my articles are constantly being deleted.
More photos… there are a jillion on Flickr now as well.