Maker Faire Education Day: Classroom Preparation


Maker Faire has created and collected a number of materials that can help prepare your students for their sneak preview of Maker Faire. Some of these items are PDF documents. If you have trouble reading those documents, please make sure you have a PDF reader installed, such as Adobe Acrobat.

Your Visit


Explorations and Activities


Who You'll See There


What You'll See There

1 to 41 of 41

The Cell Project from GalaxyGoo
   We build 3D models of cells, organelle by organelle, out of colorful clay. Imagine how organelles fill the space and group together in a living cell. Once the clay dries, we slice the cell models into cross-sections. This is a hands-on activity.

Leather Masks
   I sculpt masks out of leather - I use water, a box cutter, a cow horn, and my fingers mostly. After the leather dries, I paint and wax them. They are also nice unpainted. I also make horns (like the polymer clay ones only out of leather) in this way.

Make Your Own Glass Beads
   Learn the secrets of the Venetian Masters! With common equipment, you can make your own glass beads, buttons, and some dishes. Come see how it's done.

Busycle
   The Busycle creates press and a huge sensation everywhere it goes. Mayors and luminaries from Boston to San Francisco have driven and/or ridden it. It has been featured in the media across the globe.

Engineers Without Borders: Appropriate Technology Pavilion
   The Appropriate Technology Design Team is a group of Bay Area engineering professionals developing appropriate and sustainable design solutions for organizations working in disadvantaged communities. We strive to empower communities to help themselves by providing tools that facilitate economic development and provide basic needs, local education, training and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Life Size Mousetrap
   The LIFE SIZE MOUSETRAP is a fantastically hand crafted, 16 piece, 50,000-lb. interactive KINETIC SCULPTURE set atop a 6,500-square-foot game board. This giant Rube Goldberg style contraption comes complete with a VAUDEVILLIAN style show, original MUSICAL SCORE by The one woman band Esmerelda Strange, Sexy Mice CAN-CAN DANCERS, Clown workers, acrobatic HI JINKS, and other SPECTACULAR SCENES dedicated to the pursuit of spectacle-laden FUN!

Computerized Etch A Sketch
   Etch A Sketch toys are notorious for their difficult user interface. This project enables one to draw on an Etch A Sketch using a mouse, joystick, or GUI. Save drawings, edit them, replay them later. Render fractals autonomously. When finished, the whole machine flips over and shakes itself clear.

Precision Puzzlemaking with a Laser Cutter
   These beautiful and ingenious wooden puzzles and puzzle boxes will confound and inspire you.

MyDummy
   MyDummy is a mechanical boy on a tricycle made to look as realistic as possible. People who see "him" for the first time usually think there's a child riding a tricycle. Then they disconnect when they realize that it's just a machine. Uncanny valley strikes again!

Voxhead
   A mechanical vocal tract with tongue, lips and jaw for a robotic head to sing, babble and share attention.

Joy Slippers
   Wouldn't it be cool to draw with your feet? Well now you can with the Joy Slipper. The four homemade pressure sensors are embedded in the soles of these slippers that sense weight being shifted between the toes and heels of each foot. This information is fed into a computer where it translates to drawing directions, making the wearer of the Joy Slippers able to draw with their feet.

Creative Repurposing for Science
   No money for expensive equipment and materials? Constraints can often lead to more innovative designs! Join RAFT for fun science activities made from discarded, found, and other “creatively repurposed” materials! Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting hands-on education.

Bleep Labs
   Bleep Labs produces hand made, electronic music toys with personality. Our main product, the Thingamagoop, is a light-controlled synthesizer that produces a wide range of sounds using a simple interface. We are also releasing a kit version as well as digital toy designed with fellow makers, Loud Objects.

Infrared Thermography
   Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC) presents Infrared Thermography that provides an imaging and measurement camera and LCD that can "see" and "measure" the heat of an object. This technology is used in medical research and industry applications.

The Paper Airplane Guy
   Learn how to make a great paper airplane from the Internationally award-winning paper airplane designer and author John Collins, the master. He will demonstrate an extraordinary collection of aircrafts. They flap their wings, circle back, flip over, and fly back upside down, and some can stay aloft indefinitely. The Paper Airplane Guy will be in the Maker Shed, but you can also catch him on the Maker Main Stage in Fiesta.

R2-D2 Astromech Droids
   We're members of the R2 Builders Club. A loosely organize international group of Star Wars fans who love to build droids. We've been featured in MAKE Magazine, appeared at lots of events throughout the country, and we run droid building workshops and panels. We will be roaming around the event throughout the weekend with frequent stops back at our Rebel Base to charge our batteries. There we can answer questions on how easy it is to get started building your very own astromech droid.

Hacking Cool Things with Microcontrollers
   Learn how to make microcontrollers do what you want by actually making fun projects at the Faire. Blink lights, hack your brain, play video games, turn off TVs in public places -- microcontrollers can do it all. This is for all skill and experience levels. You can even learn to solder!

Instructables.com
   Come meet the staff and play with our laser cutter, giant homemade Lite-Brite, bicycle-wheel kinetic sculpture, mouse mouse, and other awesome projects! Learn how to submit your own! Stop by to laser-etch your cell phone, visit, and pick up some free Instructables Robot stickers!

Shadow Dome
   Formerly known as Dreams of Electric Houses. Make shadow puppets or use some of ours and use them to amaze your friends and befuddle your enemies on our wall-to-wall shadow theater.

Build a Guitar
   Learn how to make string instruments (mainly guitars) from kits. See sample kits, a finished guitar and some cool tools.

Electric Rainsticks
   

Kepler's Orrery
   Kepler's Orrery is an interactive gravity simulator that composes & plays generative music while visually demonstrating physics equations. Each simulation starts with a "galaxy" of bodies that attract each other, move, and swirl around under the influence of their mutual gravity. When the bodies collide, they make music. Each one is assigned a melody and an instrument and plays its next note at each collision. You can watch the simulation projected on the wall, or you can change the system using its interactive kiosk: experminent with physics constants; see the force field; change the mass or position of the bodies to see how the initial conditions affect the outcome.

Home Built Bicycles
   Think outside the diamond and be inspired to take some easy steps to build your own unique bicycles.

Make the Future!
   

HatManDo Offline Multiplayer Games
   

Hexagons
   I'll show construction kits for Platonic solids. Using a design printed on a single sheet of paper or card, you can turn the design into an intriguing 3D model of a Platonic solid. Included are popup dodecahedron calendar, tetrahedron pyramid puzzle, and cube of rotating cubes.

High Definition 3D Camcorder
   I mounted two high definition camcorders on a rigid aluminum plate. After processing recorded footage and playing it back while looking through LCD shutter glasses, the result is "amazingly" realistic 3D video. It's like looking through a window into the live scene itself. You have to see it to believe it.

Music Instrument Controllers with Fiber and Malleable Materials
   

PetBots!
   A robotic workshop for Kids! Learn about batteries, motors, and switches; creating several different types of mobile robots that spin, dance, and draw using recycled and reused electric components and cool laser cut acrylic chassis. PetBots can be built by anyone without prior experience. Also on show will be the Robot Ranch where you can drive the Nerf Gun Roomba and see how good your aim really is.

3D Animation Zoetrope
   

Laser Looms—Crystal and Cardboard
   

Exploring New Ways to Interact with Computers
   

Flick-to-Flick
   

Team FredNet Is Going to the Moon
   Team FredNet is going to the Moon! Team FredNet is a registered competitor for the Google Lunar X-Prize. We are busy planning and building prototypes of the spacecraft, lunar lander, and lunar rover we will use to compete for the $20 million dollar first prize. Come learn about our team, our plans, and drive our rover prototype at the Maker Faire!

Blinkybug Workshop
   Learn how to make these interesting insects with LEDs, batteries, and pipecleaners. Ken will also be appearing on the Make Demo stage.

FrankenBot Drum Triggers and Electric Tap Shoes
   

DNA Fun
   

Purl Drums
   Purl Drums is an experiment intersecting my two favorite activities: drumming and knitting. The point of intersection is the implements. I try to keep each craft as authentic as possible, with few creative leanings towards either.

Howtoons
   Part comic strip and part science experiment, Howtoons shows kids how to find fun new uses for household items like soda bottles, duct tape, and mop buckets. Authors Saul Griffith and Nick Dragotta will be there with demos and hands-on projects to prove that kids can make almost anything!

Movie FX
   I live locally (in San Carlos) and I produce a line of Special Effects DVDs that are taught by Hollywood professionals. Each DVD is 3 hours long and has multiple lessons on various techniques including molding, casting, painting, teethmaking, sculpting, prop-making, makeup, and so on. Check out the movie prop decorations and live makeup demos as well!

LUNAR Society: Rocket Launch Pad
   Be a rocket scientist! Build and fly a rocket with LUNAR, the Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry, the nation's largest model rocket club.


Maker Faire is sponsored by:

View full list of sponsors

Buy tickets to Maker Faire.