Maker Faire Returns--News from Make Magazine

Sebastopol, CA - Do-It-Yourself-ers get ready! Tis’ the season to break out the glue guns and soldering irons and start crafting and hacking and making. Why? The annual Woodstock for inventors and tinkerers--Maker Faire--runs May 19 and 20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in northern California.

The award-winning, family-friendly Maker Faire celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. The festival draws the grassroots community of backyard inventors, hackers, creative recyclers, artists, engineers, and scientists from across the country--called Makers. These Makers gather to share and display their amazingly entertaining projects, wonderfully ingenious crafts, and eye-popping, up-to-the-nanosecond projects.

“Makers are enthusiasts and hobbyists,” said Dale Dougherty, founder and publisher of Make and Craft magazines. “People are doing something they love, and they love talking about it. It’s one thing to do a project. But the real satisfaction is to share it with other people. That’s what Maker Faire is all about.”

Some 20,000 folks attended last year’s event including The MythBusters, Darryl Hannah, and Steve Wozniak. This year’s Maker Faire attendance is projected to double and features over 200 attractions.

Here’s a sampling:

Survival Research Labs (SRL), Five Foot Russian Submarine, Junkyard Jet, Bazaar Bizarre, Silicon Death Valley, RoboGames’ Combat Robots, Power Tool Drag Races, Neverwas Haul, Life-size Mousetrap, Walking Robotic Chariot, Build Your Own Blinkybug, The Electric Giraffe, The Disgusting Spectacle, Tomato-basket Dragons and Whales, Internet Crane Game, The Art of Motion Control, Puppy Mover Monorail, Model Rocket Video Camera, Hydrofoils (homemade, human-powered, ornithopter and wooden), Chris Benton’s Kite Aerial Photography, Electric Supercars, Swap-O-Rama-Rama, Roobma Hacking, Winners of the Most Spectacular Failures contest, and acres more.