Follyizer, Giving Giant Art Installations a Nervous System with Meshtastic Messaging
Maker Faire Bay Area 2026
September 25th-27th
What happens when a 28,000-pixel Burning Man installation needs to be controlled from across the playa? Follyizer is an opensource system that connects Meshtastic radios, Raspberry Pi, Falcon Player, xLights, lighting, and sound into a remote control and monitoring system for large-scale art.
This talk follows the rapid, very maker-ish development of Follyizer for the Gothic Folly at Burning Man 2026 from sending a simple RUN command over LoRa to remotely starting shows and receiving live status from an installation. It’s a practical story about making wildly different pieces of hardware and software work together, building for hostile environments, and creating tools that other makers can adapt for their own interactive art.
Schedule
Frank Cohen
Frank Cohen is a lifelong maker, inventor, software developer, author, and entrepreneur who loves turning improbable ideas into things people can actually experience. His projects span wearable electronics, interactive art, software, music, and large-scale installations. Frank created the Reflections open-source ESP32-S3 watch platform and its TAS development environment, and developed Follyizer to connect interactive lighting, sound, and control systems for Burning Man art. His recent work includes the limited-edition Cheshire Cat watch, created with Disney Imagineer Terri Hardin. Whether building tiny computers for the wrist or technology for 28,000-pixel artworks, Frank believes making is fundamentally about expanding what people imagine is possible.
