Archive for May 5th, 2008
First of all… I can sum of this weekend with one word … “Awesome!”. No.. let me change that … “AWESOME!!! Yes it was an all-caps awesome. I arrived in San Francisco on Thursday and met up with Chuck and Sean, the guys from [ Toolmonger ], who had invited me up to be a maker with them for the weekend. Our project was an 18 foot 3 dimensional Stegosaurus made completely from plywood.
For some reason, I assumed that they were bringing the one they had built in Texas with them to the Faire. It
was one of those moments were the glaring obvious completely escapes you. So, when I got there and was staring at 4 sheets of plywood, I was like, where’s the dino… They all just looked at me and laughed as I slowly came to the realization of just how stupid a question that was… LOL
So, the four of us set out to cut out “Bob” from the plywood, using a couple of jig saws and a belt sander. The goal of our project was to produce and show a project that, literally, anyone could do, while still showing something that would wow the kids. Like Chuck said, “I see parents spending 200 - 300 dollars on a blow-up dinosaur for the front yard for their kids parties, and for half the money we built a WAY COOLER dino, and you get to keep it.
So by Thursday evening, we had all the parts cut, sanded and notched and ready for us to take to the faire to assemble the next day…
Friday morning we arrived bright and early at the Faire, which was really cool, since no one but the other makers are there, and you get to have some time walking around seeing what they brought, and what they were doing and talking to them a little about the project, without the mass of people that came Saturday and Sunday. Plus since the Faire was just getting started they were still excited to talk to you about… by Sunday night you could tell they were ready to head out… LOL
We began putting Bob together and only had to make a few minor adjustments to get him together.. It was an indescribable amount of fun to take a mallet and just beat the crap out of this collection of plywood …
and then end up with a seriously cool looking dinosaur.
Once we had Bob built and ready to go, we had to get our signs and booth ready to go, and funny enough people seemed to really like taking pictures of our kickin’ sign.
Saturday and Sunday we had a blast. J.R. manned Bob and dealt with the “adults” who came by and wanted to talk about how we made Bob and what they needed to complete such a task, and managed the “kids” table. We set up two small 2D versions of Bob and cut them into jig saw puzzles for the kids. It was so cool watching them run over and sit down to put it together, and then the parents would get involved and help them out, and the puzzle was WAY harder then it looked. Even the one that was for the “little” kids was stumping some of the adults that came by, and the puzzle that was for the older kids was so hard that only 14 people were able to solve it during the entire show.
We also gave out 100 books on how to make your own 3-d Dinosaur. Toolmonger.com also posted photos and instructions on how to make the dino we made [ dino instructions ].
So here were a couple of my favorite pics from the show…
Crucible had their “Educational Response Vehicle” out at the Faire .. it was a fire truck that blew fire balls into the air.
Then there was the Lego room… I spent A LOT of time in there… They had a whole lego train set, with running trains, full cities, farming community, and mountains.. AWESOME…
Then of course, they had the “science fiction” legos.. stargate, star trek, and star wars legos.
There were all kinds of robots, including B9, the Lost in Space Robot… “Danger Will Robinson, DANGER!
… but of course the star of the show was…..
R2 was a such a hit, and mostly because of the guy who built him. He was FANTASTIC. He would stand about 20 feet away and have R2 roll up to kids and beep and talk at them … they would just SQUEAL, and hug him and you could tell that it just made their day and the show…
And finally, my personal favorite of the show was the Pleo … a little robotic dinosaur that responds to touch and sound, and was just freaking cute… I would totally buy one of these little guys for my kids.
So, Maker Faire 2008 is over.. and it was great. I had the time of my life and I want to extend a special thanks to Chuck and Sean from [ Toolmonger ] for having me up and letting me be a part of the team for the weekend.
It was the experience of a lifetime… and I will for sure be back next year.