another day in geekdom

A couple of weekends ago we headed out to the San Mateo County Fairgrounds for the Maker Faire.  If you don’t know what that is (and you probably don’t) I don’t really know how to explain it to you … see there’s this magazine called ‘Make’ and it has all kinds of DIY stuff mostly having to do with electronics or something.  Ray likes it because he’s into Arduino.  If you don’t know what that is I really can’t help you.  I don’t know what it is.  But he builds little robots and it’s computer related.

But the Maker Fair also has food & crafts & junk.  Like showing you how to grow your own mushrooms using coffee grounds and making jewelry.  It is exactly what it sounds like.  A fair for people who make things.  There’s also a whole lot of steampunks around there.

So we went and saw some crazy stuff.  Here’s a glimpse …

Welcome geeks!  **Note, I use ‘geek’ in the most affectionate way as I will gladly describe myself as one!

A women inside a motorized blueberry muffin.  Her husband was riding around inside a chocolate cupcake.  They were cruisin’.  Next year I’d do the faire again if I could ride around in one of these.

Ridiculously amazing bubbles made by using poles, rope & a bucket of soap. 

More bubbles.  Later on we saw them using what looked like a fish net that made millions of little bubble clumps.  Emma wasn’t the only one who was fascinated.

Inside the LED & Robotics building.  This was a bicycle wheel displaying different designs and such.

A group of guys who are part of a club in which all members have built their own R2-D2.

Emma on the cover (or rather in the cover) of her own Make Magazine.

My favorite part.  This guy literally had an entire city built from LEGOs.  I loved the way he used the flowers to make this ‘cherry blossom’ tree.

A farmer & his crop!  Who would’ve thunk it??  So creative.

Sushi restaurant.  He also had parks with playgrounds, hotels, diners, stores, businesses, tons of cars and people walking around.  It was awesome.

Lots of little crafty things for Emma to do.  Here she was using Crayola Clay to make an animal cell.  Once it’s finished drying out completely we’ll slice it so she can see the finished product inside.

My sister-in-law Theresa came with us.  She was quite overwhelmed by the weirdness of the whole thing.  She told me, ‘I just don’t understand any of this stuff!  It’s all way over my head!’  She did end up finding a bag made of recycled materials she really liked but after finding out it was over $200 we decided to figure out how to make them ourselves!

It was a long day full of cool and strange stuff.  No, we didn’t see Adam Savage or Grant Imahara, but we heard they were around.  Maybe next year!