Maker Faire 2011

Last weekend I joined every nerd in the entire bay area to marvel at the gadgets and creativity on display at the Maker Faire.  My absolute favourite was the guys from ArcAttack playing the Dr. Who theme song with two giant tesla coils while a couple of kids cowered in a Faraday cage...trying not to touch the sides.  BBC take note, these guys should be doing the theme song for the next season :)

My video didn't work out, but someone else took one of them doing the same thing on the last day with Adam Savage in the cage (they were also at the faire last year with a Faraday suit!):




Probably second best was the robots gratuitously destroying washing machines:



There was heaps of cool stuff for kids, including lots of fairly dangerous looking rides and bikes that required you to sign a "I won't sue you if my child dies" waiver.  There was also lots of burning-man-esque art (think lots of propane) and plenty of steampunk.

Lego Car

Create your very own Han-Solo-in-carbonite-style 3D print from a Kinect-recorded 3D model of yourself!

For a bike-powered concert there were a number of suspicious cables leading from a powerbox to the stage....

Bike axle attached off-centre so you sort of jumped up and down on the platform to make it go.  Very cool.

We need one of these for the office http://www.artoo-detoo.net/

Giant wall of push-lights = awesome babysitter

And some more videos! This was some sort of device to lure kids in, then crush them with giant boulders:



Play Guitar Hero...with Fire! Each input on the guitar was hooked to a propane flamethrower.



This swing was supposed to shut off the water to create a dry window for you to swing through. It was mostly working, but those kids were still pretty wet...