Friday, May 25, 2012

Maker Faire 2012 Recap! Now with Video!

Hoooowheee.

What a weekend. We taught hundreds (300? 400?) of people how to solder, shape and polish a ring and it was all FREE! Going into this project, I thought "Well, how busy are we gonna be? People will just stroll up to the booth and we will chat, coach them on making a ring and then we will relax, greet another person and make another ring."

What was I thinking? Good thing a had a lot of supplies and a great team to help.

I guess people really, REALLY like playing with fire. Seriously. We were SLAMMED all weekend. We had all ages jumping in and trying out the torches. (Good thing I DID have the foresight to make a safety plan. Not one burn. Well, Not one burn on any of the participants...a couple of us got singed just a little.)

If you have never been to Maker Faire, it is just an awesome experience. Makers from all over the country come and share what they do: Robotics, beekeeping, knitting, driving a tiny motorized cupcake, welding, making things out of wood, metal and fire. You name it. And this year tens of thousands of people came to see it.

JUST IN! My super talented cousin Zoe made a great video to commemorate the weekend. Thanks Zoe for making this. I think it's awesome. (Makes me want to do it all over again this weekend!) Thought you might like to see it.

And here are some snaps from the weekend. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Soldering for all ages!
Jess and Kris teaching the masses.
This couple made matching rings.
Look at that concentration.
Safety first!
Our nice booth sign.
And we got a blue ribbon from the MAKE editors for an outstanding activity.
 So much fun! Will I do it again next year? YOU BET!

2 comments:

  1. Ah man, your booth was the only one I wanted to do at the whole maker faire and I couldn't find it! I went to the place it said it was going to be but then they said the schedule had changed, and no one knew where your booth had moved to. Is there anywhere online that you've posted instructions on how to do this? Thank you.

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  2. Fun video looking forward to your book, what is the name of that song loved it

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