Johnathan hand delivered a huge thank you “poster” signed by the children from the Vacaville Concert we participated in last week. It was a big surprise and much appreciated. I had a blast and the event.

Related:

• Vacaville Concert

We’ll be at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend, May 19th and 20th, and Education Day on Thursday May 17th.

Over the weekend I helped Johnathan wire up his JEDI Control system in his droid ready for Maker Faire this coming weekend. You can’t tell because of his beard, but he has a huge grin on his face.

Fellow builder Johnathan invite Artoo and I to participate in a concert he was organizing with local schools in Vacaville. He’d been planning it for quite some time, and had composed some new songs for the children to sing. One of them was Star Wars’ish themed, so he thought it would fun to have Artoo and a few stormtroopers to participate during the performance.

When I arrived at the theater, Johnathan and his 3 year old son were busy with one last rehearsal

There were hundreds of kids in two choirs backstage, and I was asked to sneak Artoo in without causing too much of a disturbance, so I quickly ushered him in under a blanket and hid him in a side room.

Once we’d gone through our rehearsal, I hung out with 501st until it was our turn to go on stage

After the interval the troopers suited up and we hung out just off stage with the other performers waiting their turn. Of course people wanted to take photos

Little Johnathan, overcame his fear of the troopers and before long he wouldn’t leave them alone.

When it was our turn, the stormtroopers made their way to the front of the theater to enter and walk thru the audience “menacingly”, as the children sung a Star Wars themed song. Are then enter the stage as the stormtrooper were seen away by padawan jedi instructed by Yoda.

Alas, with operating Artoo and being behind stage it was pretty much impossible to get photos of Artoo and the troopers on stage, but I’m hoping someone captured some good shots.

After the little Johnathan was done conducting he came straight over and started talking with the troopers again – going so far as talking one of them out his helmet.

Gallery

Here’s a selection of photos from last years Maker Faire.I got sick right after the event and forgot I hadn’t upload my photos.

Only 7 more days till Maker Faire 2012 !!

We had an awesome turn out last year, with over ten builders in attendance at some point over the weekend. Don Bies and Grant Imahara joined us for a group photo.

R2 has become so popular at the faire, that they now provide their own droids for people to take photos with

As always lots of children at the faire, some more adventurous than others

Artoo loves to see Star Wars tee’s

Mark demonstrated his awesome 2-3-2 droid

And Artoo always appreciate the hard work from the Make team who put on the faire

Johnathan, our droid security guard, was there again

And there was a ton of Android/Arduino robot mashups

This young girl stopped by to say thank you to Artoo for being there, she gave him a personalized note

The family later emailed to tell me Artoo inspired them to make their own droids

Gallery

Related:

• Maker Faire Interview
• Maker Faire Bay Area 2010
• Maker Faire 2009
• Maker Faire Videos
• R2 Maker Faire News Coverage
• Maker Faire – Dance Program
• Maker Faire Photos
• Maker Faire Award

I took Artoo out for the Star Wars XBox launch party the other evening. Plenty of fun and games, including free raffle drawings, a costume contents and a Star Wars Trivia competition.

Line was pretty long and the 501st was on hand to keep everyone in check, by the time everyone was inside the store was packed.

Most of the children (young and and old) where excited to see Artoo. This little girl almost fell over when she saw him coming

But some were a little more timid

As usual more photos in the gallery.

Make:TV interview with Steve from last years Maker Faire.

Halloween has been and gone and as usually Artoo was out to share the night. We mixed it up a bit this year and setup a movie projector to show The Star Wars on a big screen.

I also setup Vader and Yoda in the windows.

We had a big turnout and everyone was very well behaved. Had our far share of SW costumes, but not as many as usual. I would say Mario and his brother was the top choice this year, closely followed by Transformers.

As usual more photos in the gallery.