The weird, wonderful world of tinkerers: Maker Faire 2014 (pictures)

Giant bots, soldering irons, and fire-breathing dragons, oh my! Twice a year, the two-day Maker Faire festival crops up in the San Francisco Bay Area and in New York as a nexus for home-brew projects thought up by tinkerers of all stripes. From propane-fueled robotics and Kickstarter campaigns to interactive crowd-pleasers, these were the fantastical, whimsical, and breathtaking exhibits that caught our eye this year.

Duane Flatmo built this gigantic fire-breathing steampunk-style octopus, officially known as El Pulpo Mecánico, over a period of three and a half months, on the base of a 1973 Ford 250 4x4. Its bulging eyes and pulsing tentacles are driven by a giant cam through the center, not hydraulics or computers.

The towering El Pulpo mostly minds his tentacled manners, steadily warming the crowd with his bright beacons of flame, fueled by 200 gallons of propane each day. But keep your distance -- even if you're a sucker for robotic aquaculture, not enough water in the fairgrounds can douse these righteous flames.

Plenty of cardboard "robots" lumbered around the Maker Faire, but none were as committed as "Dennis," who hails from Los Angeles. He dons his wooden soldier as he made it, piece by painstaking piece. The layers of plywood, soaked in water and adhered with Gorilla Glue, took months to build; Dennis spent a week on just the pipe wrench attachment alone. Each arm weighs about 10 pounds -- the hands weigh at least 5.5 apiece -- and the torso adds another 12 pounds. Dennis' voice barely squeaks out through his heavy crown. Is it easy to ambulate in such heavy-duty armor? I wood-n't count on it.

Tony Belmontes and his friends were tired of getting the lights stolen from their bikes. So the trio created Drop Bar, a line of Bluetooth-connected handlebars with a Cycloptic 500-lumen LED in the front and lower-powered endcap lights that act as both turn signals and speedometers.

Drop Bar's companion apps for iOS and Android help you track down a stolen bike. You can tweak the color spectrum all you want, but expect to recharge the handlebars -- via an 18mm-long 2.5 mm monojack-to-USB connector -- after two weeks of active run time. Drop Bar costs $280 apiece.

Most people traveled the Faire on two feet, but El Pulpo's maker, Duane Flatmo, prefers dragonback. He built this fire-breather in six months

Flatmo hewed his prized mechanical beast from recovered junk he found in strip shops and salvaged from the junkyard. It's as they say: one man's junk is another man's dragon.

A bathtub, bowling balls, and colorful wooden crates mark this remarkable 16-piece, Rube Goldberg-like puzzle -- called The Mousetrap -- which dazzles with dizzying kinetic fury every hour at the Faire, set to a soundtrack of haunting vaudevillian tunes.

Its precisely, constantly tuned physics are eye-boggling for sure, but the 50,000-pound Mousetrap's charm comes in its colorful and humorous details, like the license plates that add a functional role shaping the sides of this curve as well as decorative personality.

Kids of all ages are passed a pair of safety goggles, a short instruction book, and a soldering gun as they create a miniature version of the popular 1980s electronic game Simon.

A project of Htink, an educational cooperative out of New York, participants get to pack up their light-up LED board to go.

The name of this interactive installation says it all. Five hanging mannequin hands dangle as revelers leap up to make contact.

The Alameda, Calif., makers dismember mannequins that they find at a local surplus shop (who knew?) Apparently, flat-handed ones are the hardest to find, and "taller people make the worst jumpers."

BioLite's camp stove, introduced in 2012, channels surplus electricity into extra charge for your electronics. The new, larger BaseCamp model recently launched on Kickstarter and promises to create 5 watts of electricity as it burns a cleaner fire. The company will sell the stove globally and is in pilot projects to roll it out in India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where indoor smoke inhalation causes major health concerns.

Its designer drafted the robotic hand you see here using SketchUp and manufactured it from polycarbonate material. The hand can move fingers singly or in a group, and can perform functions like pinching fingers shut. "I'm afraid isn't very elegant," the maker demurred. "Don't kid yourself," a bystander replied, "this is elegant."

This interactive LED table was the brainchild of a group of third-year university students at California's UC Davis.

Built for a school project, 25 circuit boards nestled beneath the surface each throw out infrared and measure its reflection through four receivers.

Evoking both underwater serenity and outerworldly wonderment, Astro Botanical's gently glowing, color-shifting inflatable lamps form a mesmerizing landscape.

Most faire-going rugrats run through the arches of the lit-up "botanical" known as Magnolia Starship. But peering up from the center brings a more relaxing treat of ever-changing colors from pale yellow to rich, deep purples and blues.

A Maker Faire and Burning Man staple since 2006, this walking giraffe is 10,200 pounds of hand-welded steel.

Russell may have a laptop heart, but for his throngs of fans, it's his glittery tail, horns, and bright LED spots that leave their mark.

The performance group ArcAttack holds the attention of a large crowd with their musical Tesla coils.

Costumed folks on stilts and wafting bubbles form a backdrop of the Faire.

Oversize nets dipped into tubs of bubble solution paint the crowd in soapy honeycombs.

Kids love Lego. This is a fact. So what better way to quietly draw them in than this jeep you can decorate anyway you want with the tiny builder bricks?

There is no order. There is no reason. There is only brickwork to be done.

Inside one of the exhibition halls, a transparent pinball machine lights up from within.

It offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of this arcade mainstay.

The love for Star Wars culture is strong among us. Bay Area R2 Builders happily showcased functional replicas of the beloved Star Wars Astromech droid.

The love of tech isn't always high tech. Case in point: this endearing wall art based on the early days of pixels.

You won't find candy bars or bags of chips in this Maker Faire vending machine, just screwdrivers, LEDs, conductive thread, and plenty of tape.

The body of this remote-controlled vehicle was made almost entirely from 3D-printed parts.

A good, old-fashioned photo booth offers faire-goers a chance to get silly with hats and boas. In the mirror, the booth's handlers prepare for their charges.

A little paper and some tape are all you need to fire "rockets" in the fairgrounds parking lot.

After fashioning their missiles, kids slam down on the red button to launch their creations into the sky.

You could always flop down on the grass to take a rest, or climb into one of these structures for a seat and a different view.

Professional designer Jared Ficklin contemplates the point of zen relaxation with this automated robot. If the robot fulfills the raking action for you, he asks, does the viewer then meditate on the robot?

"I want to eat you!" a young boy screams as he chases a cupcake on wheels. There's nothing robotic about these sweet rides, which are built from a sturdy wooden round before being decorated with faux frosting.

A remote-controlled Dalek, constructed mostly of painted cardboard, approaches two curious Maker Faire attendees.

The MakerBot Replicator Mini we first saw in January crops up with other 3D printers at the faire, slowly, but steadily building up tiny figurines from drippings of hot plastic goo.

One such keepsake? This multicolored MakerBot, a shrunken take on the show's towering red mascot.