Photos: Crave visits the Maker Faire

Veronica and I ran ourselves ragged trying to cover all there was to see at the 2007 Maker Faire held in San Mateo, CA. Here are some highlights from a day spent with our geek volume set to 11.

Donald Bell

Aug. 7, 2007 12:06 p.m. PT

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Amazing aluminum robot sculptures by Nemo Gould.

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The folks at Blinkybug had these little, framed LED lightboxes on display. Each lightbox had an array of LED lights that would shift color behind opaque plastic and create a beautiful diffuse glow.

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At 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, performers dropped a bowling ball through this awesome giant Rube Goldberg mousetrap. No mice were harmed, but a birthday cake was permanently damaged.

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The Microsoft pavilion was fairly humdrum, but there was a nostalgic display of vintage computers in all their beige glory.

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As PEZ dispensers go, this guy was pretty huge. I believe it dispensed entire sticks of PEZ.

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There's just something about robots that goes hand in hand with a post-apocalyptic Mad Max vibe. Don't overthink it. Skulls + Robots = Cool.

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Roboticist Crabfu won us over with his steam-powered homage to R2D2.

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Lindsay Lawlor's mobile robot giraffe got an update from last year's Maker Faire. Now with an open-source Daisy MP3 player in its head, the giraffe responds to having its nose touched.

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This year's Maker Faire had a strong showing of crafters thanks to the launch of Craft Magazine. The plush meat pillows were definitely my favorite craft item. There was even a little plush block of seeded tofu for vegetarians.

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In the kids corner of the Maker Faire, the folks from Blinkybug were selling their simple Blinkybug kits for only a few bucks. The bugs are simple to make and require no soldering (just tape and wire). I really wanted to make one but felt a bit awkward sitting at a table with a bunch of 8-year-olds.

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Ernie Fosselius rode around the fairgrounds showing off his ingenious and hilarious human-powered automata.

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Three fire-shooting cannons greet fair attendees right inside the entryway. Fire not nerdy enough for you? They've got Tesla coils too.

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At the Instructables booth, we came across a dead mouse that had been stuffed and repurposed as a computer mouse (complete with scroll wheel sticking out the back). Gross. Of course, kids loved it.