Spent the day with Miles at Maker Faire 2007, where you can’t swing a cat without clobbering a team of reality hackers. Enjoyed the giant Mousetrap game (perfect functional replica of the original, writ large (very large)), the myriad bicycle hacks from Cyclecide, the whale blimp, Ukey Stardust (the entirety of David Bowie’s ;em>Ziggy Stardust performed on ukuleles), the Victorian mini-mansion on wheels Neverwas Haul, The Disgusting Spectacle (kids running on a hamster wheel cause giant to pick enormous gobs of snot from nose), playing with stop-motion claymation video, performance by the original Pepsi and Mentos dudes, the sonar-controlled self-balancing skateboard (which both Miles and I rode!), the endless procession of robots both sleek and gritty – some of them engaged in mortal combat, others the picture of gentility.
Flickr set posted, though I think my set from last year was better (in fact, I think Maker Faire was better last year in general, but not by much – may have been a state of mind, or creeping jadedness). But Maker Faire has already become an amazing father/son bonding tradition thing for us. Now I just need to learn to weld before he turns five.
Hey…Wow! Looks like a GREAT day!! Im jealous a bit. I looked at each photo and enjoyed them all. Lots and lots of creative work going on there. Im going to have to look into the 3D printer, ive never seen anything like that before. Maybe someday when Tanner is a little older, our family could tag along, but I know its becoming a big day for you and Miles to bond. Also, your photo skills are continuing to get better all the time…great stuff.
The skateboard you describe sounds like the first step towards the board the character Y.T. rides in Neal Stephenson’s excellent SF novel Snowcrash ;->
David, hmmm… maybe that explains why the sonar skateboard was white?
Actually, the “snow” mentioned isn’t the white, frozen kind. It’s the kind you get when a program crashes and writes random garbage to a bit-mapped display ;)