Maker Faire 2009

Once a year, geeks, nerds, businessmen, gamers, weird-clown-looking-people, and the (very) occasional jock, gather unified in one place: The Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. Innovators and inventors gather here to share their work, freely and openly. It is at the Makers Faire that anyone can learn from and enjoy hourly Tesla Coil shows, wars between mini tanks, naval battles between 8 foot long ships that shoot 1/4 inch metal bullets at each other, and so much more. It is where science, technology and innovation are displayed and discussed in a hands-on forum.


May 30 and 31st are a couple of my absolute favorite days in the world! This year I was able to meet many people who I had read about, including inventor Mitch Altman, the guy from the Myth Busters Adam, and of course several MIT students. I was able to talk to one guy from the MIT Media lab, who gave me some great advice about getting into a school like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “Don’t do stuff to put it on your application, do it because you are excited about it.” In addition, I met the award winning innovator who made a full oven that could boil water in minutes. This was remarkable because the oven was made of only cardboard, tin foil, and some paint.

I love the smell of solder in the morning, its the smell of victory*. Sparkfun Electronics held a small workshop. For the bargain price of 10 dollars, they give you a box of parts, and access to all of their tools and equipment. Best yet, they have experienced engineers walking around to help you build things. My piano teacher jokingly asked me to build a metronome to help me play. I was actually able to build my own at the Maker Faire. Those of you who know me know that I sometimes have a hard time with instructions, they seem to be slow and take all the fun of figuring out how the pieces fit together. I proudly made my metronome in record time, and was grinning as I placed the batteries inside. I flipped on the switch. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Horrified by my failure, I flagged down one of the “Sparkfun engineers” who quickly discovered that the microcontroller I soldered in was backwards. “You know,” he said, “it says right here in step one- to make sure that the notches align.” Whoops. The people at Sparkfun were kind enough to give me a replacement kit for free, which I am extremely grateful for considering that it was my fault for not reading the directions.

In addition to countless new innovations, there were the famous Coke and Mentos guys who repeated their show from last year. The success of their explosion formula has given these guys quite a following on Youtube. That said, there is no substitute for seeing their show in person.


Equally fascinating were the 3D printers that could literally print out flip-flops, hair combs, toothbrushes and just about anything else you could possibly think of. There were also plasma and laser cutters that I saw in action, along with a variety of holograms and 3D films. This is only scratching the surface of all of the amazing exhibits at the Maker Faire. The only real way to fully see everything is to be there!!