Maker Faire is this weekend and I’ve had a fun week getting ready. I’ve cleaned up and fixed a bunch of stuff that have been bugging me, and added a few new features.

Today, Friday is Education Day so I’ll be heading out in about an hour with Steve for a day of special programming targeted at school students.

On Saturday, in addition to the R2 Builders (now dubbed R2 Makers for the weekend), there will be a few other Star Wars related exhibits at the faire.

Bonnie Burton from LucasFilm will be presenting Star Wars Crafts: Marble Magnets

and my friend Richard Jacobsen, prop maker extraordinaire, will be showing you how to Build Your Own Vacuum Forming Machine. So if you’ve wondered how those cool Stormtrooper costumers are made – this is the thing to see.

Matthew Carauddo will be showing off his Crystal Focus LED “lightsaber” Project.

We’ll be based in the main Expo Hall (exhibit #1075), but watch for us through the faire.

For the full schedule click here.

The weekend before Halloween Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos threw a two day Halloween bash, and of course I had to take R2 along for a spin.

They had a lot of children activities and of course encouraged everyone to show up in costume.

R2 was a big hit with children young and old and I had a blast running him around. For part of the afternoon I hid myself up on a balcony overlooking the main atrium and most of the children and adults alike though that he was autonomous. I a little trouble from some over excited children, but security stepped in to keep everyone in check.

The cutes thing of the day was probably the little “pepe la peu” guy running around, he was fearless and kept on sprinting toward R2. His mother though that R2 was autonomous and was worried the robot would run her child over 🙂

I probably hadn’t been to Hiller since the Pod Racer Exhibit back in 2001 and my first trooping event, but I’m hoping to go back soon.

A big thank you to the museum staff for making me feel so welcome, and to Jeff the museum Director for taking and sharing photos that are so hard to take when running R2.

[More photos]