RSS
All Maker Faire Exhibits
Outside
View a list of Maker Faire Makers or Exhibits
Browse by location:
Bike Town •
Craft Demos •
Cypress •
East Gate •
Expo Hall •
Fiesta Hall •
Homegrown Village •
Human Powered Stage •
Maker Shed •
Meeting Pavilion •
Midway •
Music Noise •
Outside Grass •
Redwood •
Roaming •
Screening Room •
Sequioa •
Show Barn •
Steampunk •
West Gate •
West Lot
Japanese Storycard Theater
Experience short kamishibai dramas from the Storycard Theater series, winner of the 2004 Dr. Toy Award for Top 10 Creative Products and two 2008 Parents' Choice awards. Kamishibai (literally "paper theater") was a popular Japanese street-performance format in the days before TV. For kids of all ages.
| Location: Outside |
Robotic Warship Combat
Last year's popular Axis vs Allies naval combat returns to Maker Faire with even more exciting "Sink or Surrender" events in the outdoor warship combat arena. This year more battles will be scheduled, with something new added: special, hands-on combat events just for kids, featuring R/C boats that launch ping pong balls at targets.
In the adult events, watch 6-foot-long robotic warships duel to the death in a large, specially built pond. Sophisticated DIY robotics and guns fire CO2-powered steel balls. Safe for the whole family. Hands-on exhibits and technology demonstrations provided by the Western Warship Combat Club (WWCC) of San Jose, California.
| Location: Outside Battle Zone |
R/C Russian Alfa Class Submarine
This 5-foot, four-channel, radio controlled Russian Alfa Class submarine features an onboard air compressor and original operating systems designed by Mike Wernecke. It has an operating distance of 50+ feet on the surface and 8 feet below freshwater surface.
| Location: Outside Battle Zone |
Acme Muffineering
Acme Muffineering presents Kinetic Pastry Science Mobile Muffins.
Discover the recipe for a full batch of 1:18 scale mobile muffins. Delicious scratch-built, electric-powered, highly maneuverable, and capable of 18mph+!
| Location: Outside East Gate Entrance |
Artgolf 2009!
Returning to Maker Faire for the third year, it's Artgolf 2009. Those fun and chaotic favorites of the shrink-ray, the tubes, the tiki jungle, the classic castle, and more are all here! As well as a whole new hole for 2009, based on working together to help each other out!
| Location: Outside East Grass O |
LEGOJeep
The LEGOJeep is a fun interactive art car, seen on the street and at the most playful parties & events for all to interact with. You never know what patterns, shapes, or sculptures will be on it and neither does he! So come play with the LEGOJeep and change your environment, rethink what is possible, and make something new.
| Location: Outside East Grass O |
ScienceWiz Electric Car Camp
In the Sciencewiz Electric Car Camp elementary school age campers design and build electric go carts. The youngest campers learn basic metal working and electrical skills while building relatively conventional go carts, while the older campers design exotic and original cars.
| Location: Outside East of Meeting Pavilion |
The Maker Fair Organ
Simran Gleason
I take the sounds of the Maker Fair and turn them into a
playable instrument: the Maker Fair Organ.
Here's how it works:
* Start with the basic principle of a brass or woodwind instrument:
a chaotic sound source is filtered by passing it through a long
tube which amplifies frequencies related to the resonant frequency
of the tube.
* Now reverse that: place a tuned tube in a noisy environment with a
microphone at the closed end of the tube. The sounds that relate
to the resonant frequency of the tube are picked up by the
microphone. Other sounds are filtered out.
* The Organ is then a set of tuned tubes placed together in a
row. Each tube "hears" the portion of the sonic melee that is the
Maker Fair that matches its tuning.
* Hook a keyboard up to the tubes to turn on and off each tube's
microphone, so when you press the C key, the microphone for the C
tube is turned on, and when you release it, that microphone is
turned off.
* Now you have a playable instrument. Feed the sound from the
microphones that are on to an amplifier and speakers. The tubes
hear the sounds from the amp, and further amplify them in a
tuned feedback loop that grows into an organ-like sound.
* The instrument will be played in 4 modes:
- interactive:
Anybody can sit down at the keyboard and start
playing a tune with the sounds of Maker Fair!
- canned music:
The instrument will be played by sending midi files to the
controller, thus playing familiar tunes.
- performance:
small performances with other musicians can be planned or
impromptu. Perhaps clowns or juggler will drop by.
- generative music:
A more ambitious plan will be to write a generative music
algorithm that listens to the ambient sounds, detects
notes, and composes a musical soundscape that is then
played using those same sounds. This is a similar concept
to my piece from 2 years ago, Haunted Garden. An added
twist will be to take the parameters to the music
generation algorithm, think of them as a genome, with a
mutation function, and run artificial evolution on the
composition. The fitness function would be the listeners
preferences: there will be big "thumbs up" and "thumbs
down" buttons that rate the results of mutating the
genomes. Sets of parameters that make music that pleases
the makers get to breed and send their genes to the next
generation, thus evolving the musical landscape.
| Location: Outside Front of Fiesta |
Barony of the Westermark
The Barony of the Westermark is a small branch of the Society of Creative Anachronism ("SCA") located in San Mateo County, California. The SCA is a non-profit educational organization devoted to the research and recreation of pre-seventeenth century Middle Ages. Activities range from heavy weapons fighting, arts (spinning, weaving, illumination) and sciences (armoring, fletching, carpentry), to music and dance.
| Location: Outside Gate E |
Veritable Vicissitudes
We will enable attendees to create continuously evolving dance works. By playing a game, winning attendees can move a dancer(s) in space and direct their movement phrases. Attendees can either collectively or independently create new choreographic works in real-time while being engaged in a fun, challenging and collaborative experience.
| Location: Outside Grass O |
Riekes Center Maker Soundtrack
Participants will collaborate to create and record songs using synthesizers and electronic music, as well as traditional instruments ranging from guitars to wood blocks. The songs will be posted online at the end of the weekend, with all participants credited in their creation.
| Location: Outside Grass S near Gate D |
GleanEnergy Project
This application of the GleanEnergy principle demonstrates a mechanism which gleans a small amount of energy from pedestrian activity, and applies it to raising water, through a simple system of one way valves, to a height where it can be used to generate electricity.
| Location: Outside Grass U |
Theremin Musician - Solar Powered
Play and explain the theremin (first electronic instrument).
Converted to solar power.
note: just talked to Dale
Can send up some video later if the sun come out.
| Location: Outside Mobile |
Mixing Maker Faire
Brandon McFarland, a young producer in Oakland’s hip-hop scene, will engineer a live mix of Maker Faire’s ambient sound. He’ll download audio recorded by Youth Radio’s roaming field producers and, with audience interaction and explaining as he goes, edit together a surprising and evolving soundscape that emerges from the fairgrounds.
| Location: Outside Mobile |
Ceallach Dyes: solar dyed yarn for you and the planet
Kelley Dean-Crowley
Between crafting and making, there lies an exciting intersection of possibility where yarn and fiber can be dyed using passive solar for the dyeing of the fibers. My dyeing process uses home built solar ovens built from recycled and reclaimed wood and glass which will be on display, minimizes water usage and contamination from chemicals.
| Location: Outside Outside Homegrown Village |
Educational Response Vehicle
The Crucible's Educational Response Vehicle (ERV) is a 1960 International Harvester fire engine, re-purposed as a demonstration platform for industrial and fire arts. ERV supports simultaneous demonstrations of blacksmithing, arc welding, oxy-acetylene torch cutting, glass flameworking. Additionally, ERV has an on-board accumulator flame effect (poofer).
| Location: Outside South of Oak |
Mercedes Pens Art Car
The Mercedes Pens is a 1981 300SD Mercedes covered in over 10,000 pens. I was inspired by a book on Art Cars and in June of 2005 I had the idea to glue PENS on my car early one morning. So far I have had opportunities to speak in schools about what I do and inspire others to follow their dreams, and appear at various events where kids ages 1-120 years old get to glue pens on my car. In the four years I have been driving this car around I have been able to make a lot of people smile - and that is the best part of why I do this. If you have a chance come by and experience this for your self, and if you happen to have any "dead" pens laying around, bring them and you can glue these on the car also.
| Location: Outside West Gate |
Maker Faire is sponsored by:
 |
Maker Faire on Facebook Visit our Facebook page and become a fan of Maker Faire! |
 |
Maker Faire on Twitter Follow Maker Faire on Twitter! |
