Call for Makers Extended through September 15

EBMMF takes form at The Crucible

This gallery contains 10 photos.

That mother of all maker spaces, Oakland’s own Crucible, was an inspiring venue for 100 makers of all ages to kickoff preparations for the 5th Annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire! After a tour of the Crucible’s many workspaces, dedicated … Continue reading →

2014 Call for Makers Kickoff + Town Hall @The Crucible

West Oakland’s fabulous industrial arts nexus, The Crucible, is generously hosting our meet up and Call for Makers kickoff for the 5th Annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire this coming Tues, 7/29. Come out and schmooze and brainstorm and network and raise a glass, chow, etc—all in prep/anticipation of Sunday, October 19th!

Tour of The Crucible starts at 6:30; Town Hall at 7:15.

RSVP and more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/699106323496631/

If for some reason you can’t make it but want to get a jump on things, go ahead and fill our Call for Makers application out now!

That was one HECK of a show.

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We are overwhelmed with appreciation for the spectacular day on Sunday.  This year, our fourth, we showcased just under 200 makers and hosted 7,000 people on the combined venue of Park Day School and Studio One Art Center.  The weather was spectacular, the depth and variety of content superlative, the community feeling strong.  And we had the first-ever, full-scale crate stacking show very likely in the history of the planet!

Thanks go first to our makers, those creative, generous people.  There is no Maker Faire without you.  You are problem-solvers and you are by and large easy.  You collaborate.  You are curious and happy.  Thank you for sharing your talent and your process and your prowess.

Then there’s our partners—Studio One Art Center, a fantastic arts facility owned and operated by the City of Oakland—and MAKE magazine, the entity behind Maker Faire.  And our sponsors (just look to the right rail), those companies and institutions that understand the value of maker culture and how important it is to foster and encourage.

Finally there’s the community of Park Day School.  How many of you reading this realize that the East Bay Mini Maker Faire is produced and organized entirely by the parents and staff of this progressive Oakland K-8 school?  It’s a staggering accomplishment, even for a group of professionals, let alone volunteers.  Thank you parents and staff!

Some nice news / posts came out about the fair:

• Inside Bay Area (San Jose Merc News + Contra Costa Times):  “Oakland Maker Faire Brings Out Creativity“
• Makezine.com: “Making Makers at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire” as well as “East Bay Mini Maker Faire: A Kid’s Perspective.”
• And a congratulatory tweet from MAKE and Maker Faire founder Dale Dougherty:  Congrats to @EBMakerFaire team, Park Day School and @sannmer on charming “fall festival” vibe for today’s East Bay Mini Maker Faire.

We’ve been collecting images and loading them into a Flickr feed.  Please please share your images and videos—there were so many unique experiences at the fair that we’re just plain curious to see what you saw! Let us know via comments here, on Facebook or Twitter or G+, or email us at info@ebmakerfaire.com.

So *phew* we’re done for this year.  But before you forget all of this, we’ve got a survey for makers and a survey for attendees that we would so appreciate if you would take a moment to complete.  Your brilliant ideas, constructive critiques, and words of adoration are all very much desired and appreciated, and will help us be bigger, better, stronger, and more fun in 2014.  See you then.

Photos by Stephen Jacobson, Ben Smith, John Orbon, Sabrina Merlo, Karen Marcelo and Jeffrey Braverman/MAKE.  See the full Flickr gallery and attribution info here.

Program! Get yer program!

Download the mighty East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2013 program and try—just try—to plan your day! It’s tough, we’re hoping you get a little distracted and diverted and that you explore every nook and cranny of this incredible joint venue of Park Day School and Studio One Art Center.

Be sure to go upstairs in Studio One for Tapigami & the Dark Room & Fixit Clinic; the side of Studio One to Robot’s Grotto & the front lawn for crate stacking; to the back corner of Nerd’s Nest for makerspaces and smart aquaponics; inside the Magnolia lobby to see the unbelievable work of Non-Terrestrial Arms;  Food Truck alley for all kind of amazing food, beer and Sugar Alley for sweets; the end Doer’s Desert for Nerdy Derby and the amazing upright looms from Children’s Museum of East Bay.  Keep going, keep exploring—we’ve planned for something amazing in just about every corner!

Shop a Little!

On Sunday, you’ll find an great variety of commercial makers in Studio One Plaza and Theater—the Makers’ Marketplace— and also in the Magnolia Circle at Park Day. Here’s a little preview:

Paper Punk

Grace Hawthorne, CEO/Publisher of ReadyMade, founded Paper Punk, an innovative paper-based building toy that provides endless imaginative and creative play for humans of all ages.

A Slice of Delight in Berkeley
Founded by Hilary Goldman in 2009, after she transitioned out of high tech — where she’d worked for 35 hours — to launch into the new and exciting world of soap crafting. This mother of twins buys her soap base and colorants direct from local suppliers.

Kimonomomo in San Francisco

Founded in 2005 by Carol Ziogas, who learned how to sew in 1978 on a  vintage Singer machine back. She loves Japanese textiles “because they are beautiful. Growing up near San Francisco I was exposed to a tremendous amount of Asian art, and my mother was a textile junkie who quilted and collected Japanese fabrics herself. It rubbed off on me.”

DawnKathrynStudio an Etsy artist in Oakland

Other Commercials Makers….

• Nous Savons
• Parable Puzzles
• Story Lamps
• Touching the Ages
• Animal Store
• b-spired
• Bay Area Models
• Compass Rose
• FiggyPudding 5A
• Junkyard Couture
• Monster Dream
• New World Mosaic
• Tiny Splendor  15A
• Woodblock
• Lee’s Haven
• Sima’s
• Robin MacLean
• Bird of Virtue
• Field Day
• EGChu Handcrafted

The Public Debut of a New Sport: Crate Stacking!

Crate stacking is a game.  The objective is to stack as many upside-down plastic milk crates as possible and stand on the top. Stackers rest their feet in the handle holes of the milk crates, and the challenge is to place the next crate and transfer footings without losing balance and blowing the stack.

The set up is like indoor rock climbing or top rope climbing in that players are in a harness and are belayed for safety. Crates are tossed to the stacker when the stack is low, and then ferried by a rope on a pulley when the stack is high. When the stack inevitably blows, the stacker is held aloft as the milk crates scatter asunder. It’s fun. Really fun.

Want to try it? Crate Stacking will be going down on the front lawn of Studio One all day at East Bay Mini Maker Faire.  Under 18 will need parents present to try.  The highest stackers will be invited to a stack-off at 4 PM.

Here’s Crate Stacking game maker Liam McNamara, landing a record 26 stack:

Interview: CamDAX, Electrical Boy Wonder

Thanks to Goli Mohammodi and Makezine.com for the permission to repost their interview with 16-year-old Cameron Mira (CamDAX), maker, artist, club organizer. Cameron is coming to East Bay Mini Maker Faire for the second time, bringing his Tesla coil as well as a his new pinball machine. Find him upstairs in the dark room in the Studio One building.

1. Tell us about the audio-modulated full-bridge Tesla coil you’re bringing to Maker Faire.
When I was around five, during lightning storms, me and my mom would sit in the kitchen and watch the lightning strikes in the distance — it was really neat. Where I lived at the time was very flat so you could see it easily. A few years ago I saw ArcAttack at Maker Faire and it showed me how much I really like lightning. This last year I built a spark gap Tesla coil, and I’ve been experimenting almost twice a week with [the effects on] different things. First I tried the usual stuff: fluorescent lights, wood, or a screwdriver. Then I tried more elaborate things like Hershey’s Kisses, scanner laser tubes, wire sculptures, and then fused glass pieces.

When the Young Makers program came around, I joined and decided to make an audio-modulated full-bridge solid state Tesla coil. We haven’t finished it yet, but we plan on having it done in time for Maker Faire. It’s going to have a cool light-up control panel with an RGB LCD screen, a big red button, metal pushbuttons with LED rings, and some other light-up components. The buttons have to light up so you can see them in the dark. We hope to play songs no one else has tried, like the Quantum Leap theme song, Scooby Doo theme song, and maybe a Beatles song. Our demonstrations will include music playing through the coil and lightning sculptures made out of metal and glass.

Big Big Thanks

EBMMF Sponsors, YOU ROCK!!

Please take a look at the right hand column on the web site. The logos of our sponsors are listed there–and these supporters deserve a big shout out from everyone involved in the East Bay Mini Maker Faire.

We so appreciate these event Sponsors, as they help us to cover the costs of putting on the Faire, getting the word out and ensuring that the 4th Annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire is the best yet!!!  When you’re at the Faire, please look for their booths and thank them for their support.  Many are makers going pro, or established companies that have a heart for makers, our our local community.

Thanks to all of you for supporting the East Bay Mini Maker Faire!

The sponsors for the 2013 event to date are:

• MAKE magazine
• Kaufman Construction
• UC Berkeley and UC Berkeley School of Engineering
• LanSharks
• Camp510
• Orange Door Properties
• Brushstrokes Studio
• 510families
• East Bay Express
• Type A Machines
• TrackersEarth
• The Framers Workshop/The Framers Outlet
• Aidells
• Laserbuilt
• The Richmond Art Center
• BuyCalls
• Swimtown Pools
• HoneyBee3D
• Play-Well Tek
• 3Dbotic
• Explory
• Quantum Camp
• Studio One Arts Center
• Park Day School  

Can’t wait for the Faire! See you all Sunday!

RObots RoBots RoboTs

What would a Maker Faire be without robots?!  Well, we have a variety of robots and robotics exhibits and talks (see below).  But the larger robots that attendees are going to get to drive (and that will be located in Robot Grotto off the Studio One Building), are at the fair in large part due to the Bay Area student robotics club community.

First, there’s three FIRST Robotics teams.  One is the Scotbots from Piedmont High School.  Two are Terra Nova Robotics from Terra Nova High School in Pacifica.

FIRST is a worldwide robotics competition program. There are 350,000+ FIRST teams around the world, and over 100 in the Bay Area.  It is very organized, with five different levels:

• FIRST Robotics Competition for Grades 9-12
• FIRST Tech Challenge for Grades 7-12
• FIRST LEGO League for Grades 4-8
• Junior FIRST LEGO League for Grades K-3
• FIRST Place for ages 6 to adult

All the Scotbots and Terra Nova teams are FTC or FIRST Tech Challenge robots.  The organizing principle for the FIRST competitions is that every year the FIRST parent entity announces that year’s design challenge.  One year it might be about a robot climbing a structure and flinging frisbees through certain size slots.  Another might be shooting baskets with basketballs. From the FIRST website:

Teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots to compete on a 12 X 12’ field in an Alliance format against other teams. Robots are built using a TETRIX^® platform that is reusable from year-to-year using a variety of languages. Teams, including Coaches, Mentors, and Volunteers, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Awards are given for the competition as well as community outreach, design, and other real-world accomplishments.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, an inventor and entrepeneur who designed and built the Segway, those self-balancing two-wheeled people mover machines.

These teams travel globally to compete.  The Terra Nova team is bringing a state champion robot!  And attendees of all ages will be allowed to drive some of these competition bots!

The other cool student-oriented robot group coming to the fair is UC Berkeley’s PIE (Pioneers in Engineering).  PIE is a UCB student club that provides a quality STEM learning experience for students in underserved Bay Area high schools.  They offer a year-long mentorship program called Prep and an annual 8-week robotics competition.  For just $100 per team, they provide a robotics kit that’s fully designed and developed in-house, as well as trained college student mentors for each team.  Super awesome program!  (And speaking of UC Berkeley, thanks to them and their School of Engineering for coming in as lead sponsors of the 2013 East Bay Mini Maker Faire!)

Here’s a video of the Oakland Tech High School winning moment at the 2013 PiE final:

There will be a whole lot of other robotics oriented makers and presentations at the fair, including:

EXHIBITS

• Arxterra Telerobotic Communities
• The Tea Engine
• Pxlbots
• ButterBot
• Julia Morgan School for Girls Engineering Programs
• Aritifist Robotics
• Mini-Bots

PRESENTATIONS

• Drones, Planes, and Flying Robots
• Multirotors 101
• Getting Started with Arduino (time to be confirmed today)