AUSTIN, Texas — Nurtured
by an encouraging
community of semistrangers on
the Internet, tinkers, inventors and craftsmen from all walks of life are rediscovering the simple pleasure of making things — useful things, ridiculous things and crazy, complicated things. Got an old computer monitor lying around ? Need a fish tank ? At www. instructibles. com you can learn to turn that castoff carcass into a home for your fi shy friends. While you’re there, follow a beginners’ knitting tutorial or see how to turn a wire coat hanger into an ergonomic stand for a laptop computer.
Instructibles. com is a sister site to makezine. com and craftzine. com, the online versions of Make and Craft magazines, quarterly booklets that celebrate the do-ityourself spirit with a trendy edge.
These Web sites offer support and inspiration for those drawn to create. For the crafty- and creatively challenged, this is a good thing — but online, it’s all two-dimensional. Maker Faire was created to provide a three-dimensional perspective.
At the family friendly, mind-expanding Maker Faire, “science fair meets county fair meets crafts fair,” says Sherry Huss, the event’s director. Huss, who works closely with Dale Dougherty, the founder of Make and Craft magazines, says the idea for the event came from a desire to have a face-to-face event with the people featured in the magazines and online.
“Maker Faire is like a contemporary version of the old county fair,” she says.
On Oct. 18-19, a variety of like-minded “makers” and about 32, 000 fans descended on the Travis County Expo Center in Austin to attend the fifth Maker Faire. The two-day happening uses science, technology and craft to celebrate the do-it-yourself spirit in a big way.
Big as in a life-size version of Hasbro’s popular Mousetrap game that has players build a crazy Rube Goldberg-style mousetrap activated by the turn of a crank that sends a marble tumbling through a series of mechanical devices, including a little plastic bathtub, until it trips a mouse-catching net at the end.
Inspired by the game, which has been sold in its current form since the 1970 s, engineering enthusiast Mark Perez spent 13 years building a life-size version. In his mousetrap, the bathtub is a full-size cast-iron tub, the ball is a bowling ball and he has substituted a safe for the net at the climax. But the safe doesn’t fall on a helpless mouse; it smashes a box of simulated government cheese.
There was still bigger stuff to see — like the Ponginator, a smoke-belching, siren-blaring, music-blasting robot built by members of the Austin Robot Group. The Ponginator stands three stories high and shoots pingpong balls into the air from twin armlike pneumatic cannons. As if the whole idea isn’t spectacular enough, the metallic marvel is equipped with a laser printer that encodes messages in tiny type on every ball. It is mesmerizing.
When the Ponginator begins its occasional minishow, sirens screech, lights flash and boys (and plenty of others ) stop in their tracks to watch in awe. Then the pounding strains of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” begin, the whole contraption rises 30 or so feet on a bucket truck crane and starts shooting. That’s when the children spring to life, scrambling to chase the tiny souvenir missiles.
The first Maker Faire was held in the spring of 2006 in the San Francisco Bay area, and others were held there in 2007 and this year. The first show in Austin was October last year.
“Dale realized engineers like making and building things, but the reality is in their jobs they were managing people and pushing papers,” Huss says. “On their own time, their real passion was for their projects, the things they were building in their garages.”
Maker Faire gives them a way to share their works with others.
At the event, local robot-building teams pitted their creations against each other in the Robo Games theater. Behind bullet-resistant glass, warrior robots remotely operated by their lab coat-wearing creators aimed to hack, saw or scorch their way to victory. It was like the battles featured on the former reality-television show Robot Wars. In another venue, highschool-age robot builders took a less violent path by competing in an obstacle course maze. INSPIRATION, COMMUNITY
Though Maker Faire has its roots in technology and science, Huss says when they were planning the first fair they realized they needed to add something for the less technically minded members of the family. They contacted Bazaar Bizarre, a group that organizes edgy craft shows. The resulting craft area didn’t have the usual potters and candle makers. Instead, there were jewelers who made earrings from discarded computer circuitry and a woman crocheting shopping bags out of used plastic bags. Some of the craftsmen sold their goods, but just as many were demonstrating techniques and sharing secrets, all in the name of inspiration and community.
Art teacher and craftsman Claire Chauvin demonstrated how to make homemade shrink plastic jewelry (remember Shrinky Dinks ?) from clear to-go containers. Her booth was bustling with activity as parents and children decorated the recycled plastic with markers and colored pencils then waited as Chauvin slid their creations into an ordinary toaster oven until they shrank to a fraction of their original size. Chauvin wasn’t selling anything, but simply teaching and having fun.
“I’m a teacher and participating in an event like Maker Faire is just an extension of my teaching,” Chauvin says. “I also grew up in a household where DIY [doit-yourself ] was practiced pretty regularly. If you could fix it, repurpose it, or make it yourself, you didn’t need to go out and bring something new into the house. If I can inspire someone else to think more along those lines, then I’m happy.”
TRADITIONAL AND EDGY A few stalls down, an octogenarian crochet fan (who proclaimed he had been crocheting since he was 8 ) was teaching his craft to mothers, daughters, fathers and sons, anyone who would sit still for a few moments. He displayed a full-size bedspread he’d made from the finest of crochet threads. Across the aisle, another group promoted knitting. Still others were teaching wool felting. Except for the aged crocheter, these teachers weren’t the traditional craftsmen of old — they were young and hip and excited to do their part to keep their crafts alive.
Austin’s Sarah Stollak says she considers herself a folk artist, but she brings a modern edge to traditional knitting by using freeform stitches to create knitted guitarshape sculptures. She’s proud to introduce the craft to a new generation of knitters. The hip style of Stollak’s creations was a real draw for the younger crowd.
Nearby, inventor Hannah Perner-Wilson of New York represented the future. She displayed her invention, Massage Me, an unconventional video-game controller built into the back of a vest. Perner-Wilson says she invented the vest so when she wore it her partner would massage her back as he played video games. At Perner-Wilson’s booth, game players sat behind their vestwearing partners — prodding, pushing and massaging their way to victory or defeat in a kick-boxing video contest. With the vest, it seems everybody wins. The players get to enjoy their game and the vest wearer gets a gentle back massage. As Perner-Wilson put it, “Otherwise wasted button-pushing energy is transformed into a massage and the ‘addicted’ game player becomes an inexhaustible masseur.” Brilliant.
‘CURRENCY OF IDEAS’ Like so many of their fellow exhibitors, Perner-Wilson and her partner, Mika Satomi, are happy to give away their secrets. See www. massage-me. at for instructions to make the massage / gaming vest.
Huss describes Maker Faire as “a place where the currency is ideas instead of cash. Where people share freely. It’s kind of a very cool thing.”
The Maker Faire staff works with area groups and inventors to create that atmosphere. The fair began as an event for people who wanted to share their passions, but also as a venue in which to capture the interest of and educate young people about engineering and science.
“From an educational level, if kids don’t get interested in these things by the 9-to-13-year-old age range, they probably won’t,” Huss says.
In Austin, members of the Austin Bike Zoo, a sort of quasi theater troupe that builds and rides unique human-powered vehicles, were giving rides on their one-of-a-kind creations, such as the 80-foot-long, fi verider rattlesnake bike or 17-foothigh butterfl y bike.
Over at the Swap-O-Rama-Rama tent, adventurous types gathered to transform castoff clothing into new creations. Designers were on hand to help people learn to sew, embroider and add decorations. At a silk-screen station, volunteers helped people stencil designs onto their unique new fashions.
Swap-O-Rama-Rama creator Wendy Tremayne started the first swap as a way to recycle old clothing. Now she helps others develop their own swap events. (Information can be found at www. swaporamarama. org. )
The most spectacular two minutes of the day came when Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz from eepybird. com set off their Mentos and Diet Coke Mega Fountains. Some readers will be familiar with soda geysers that are created when Mentos candies are dropped into a 2-liter bottle of a carbonated beverage. Grobe and Voltz offered a two-minute performance using more than 500 candies and 200 bottles of soda. It’s one thing to see this choreographed symphony of soda-spewing silliness online; quite another to watch as the wind blows an errant geyser your way.
Perhaps Voltz summed up the spirit of the fair best when he instructed the crowd, “Try this at home.”
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online