I spent last Sunday afternoon at the MakeSF Meetup with Artoo, this month it was held at the TechShop in Menlo Park in the heart of Silicon Valley. It’s a relatively new group and a spin-off of the Make Faire.
From the MakeSF website:
Our Mission
Meet with local people to discuss and show-and-tell new technology.
The goals are to:
Meet other local Makers
Share ideas, skills, and local resources
Create collaborations between engineers, makers, craft folks, artists, etc.
Get projects ready for Maker Faire, Burning Man or other nearby events
Get opinions or advice on project execution
There were around 20 people in attendance, but only one person had brought something to share, so I was encourage to do an improtute presentation on building and Artoo.
The TechShop also gave us a tour of the impressive facility.
Last Thursday Steve and I where at a the Mini Maker Faire at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. There were probably close to 30 makers in attendance, ranging from robots and electronics projects to Steampunk musicians.
It was the last night of the show and the party was packed. We got to mingle with some cool people and show off Artoo and a bunch of parts and explain what goes into making your very own droid.
I’m in the computer industry so it was strange to be there as an outsider providing entertainment for the evening. It did allow me to make some obscure jokes about Intel chips that nobody would normally get.
This guy was upset because I didn’t have my transmitter in a bag to hide it from onlookers 🙂
We did a couple of interviews and TV spots, including this one with Wil Harris from ChannelFlip. I’ve been listening to him for years on Twit and it was fun to finally meet him.
Big thanks to the Make team for inviting us to this event – they really do know how to organize a great show.
Here’s some highlights from Maker Faire, the complete album can be found here.
Friday’s Education Day
Saturday
Sunday
Wall-E who?
Jedi or Jawa? You decide.
Danger R2-D2!!
Artoo at the Star Wars Button Making workshop with Bonnie Burton
Big thanks to Vern from Nuts and Volts Magazine for providing copies of Servo and Nuts and volts Magazines where the Builders Club was recent features.
Posted by Chris on May 5th, 2008 in Events|Comments Off on Maker Faire Photos
I’ve had a crazy couple of days at Maker Faire, and we still have one more day to go. I’ll be posting a full update and photos tomorrow, but just had to post this tonight.
We won a Maker Faire Editor’s Choice award for our creations and participation. This is a great honor and surprised considering the 100’s of cool Makers and their creations at the event.
Make Faire is a production of Make: Magazine, which the R2 Builders Club was featured in a few years ago, and is held every year in San Mateo, California, with in excess of 45,000 people in attendance.
