Heads on Fire hosted the Bay Area Maker Faire Fab Lab. At Maker Faire Austin, the Fab Lab has been hosted by the Boston Fab Lab at the South End Technology Center. Wikipedia has a decent list of the various Fab Labs around the world.

Daniel Smithwick has been working to develop a new model for architecture. Instead of building each structure as a custom object, people can use software and hardware to make repeatable designs that can be manufactured and assembled where and when they are needed.

He recently wrote an article on the Shopbot site to help explain his vision of design and manufacturing of housing and other objects.

Our company's vision is to revolutionize architectural design and production and to make these processes transparent by empowering consumers throughout the world with the online tools and resources that enable them to become the producers of their own creations.

Not only are there incredible inefficiencies in the current practice of design, fabrication and construction of architecture, but until now these processes have been limited to costly design professionals, wasteful manufacturing facilities and labor-intensive site work.

You may want to take a look at the Physical Design site for more information.

Chris Anderson demonstrates the systems of the BlimpDuino.

The Blimpduino kit is a very low cost, open source, autonomous blimp kit. It consists of an Arduino-based blimp controller board with on-board infrared and ultrasonic sensors and an interface for an optional RC mode, a simple gondola with two vectoring (tilting) differential thrusters, and ground-based infrared beacon. Assembly is required, including soldering.

Anderson created the BlimpDuino with Jordi Munoz of DIY Drones. Their entry, shown in the video above, took first place in the Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition a few months ago.

If you want to build the BlimpDuino, the documentation is on the site and pretty good. Printing the build notes out and setting aside a few hours with the soldering iron should have you in pretty good shape.

Starting this weekend, Copperfield's books in CA is hosting a series of mini Maker Faires, we hope you can join us for a fun afternoon this summer! Download this PDF for more information.

Mini Maker Faires at Copperfield's:

6/26 - Sebastopol (11am - 1pm)

7/11 - Petaluma (11am - 1pm)

7/18 - Montgomery Village (11am - 1pm)

7/25 - Healdsburg (11am - 1pm)

8/1 - Petaluma (11am - 1pm)

8/8 - Montgomery Village (11am - 1pm)

Rodney Brooks, of MIT's AI Lab and iRobot, is one of my all-time heroes. His work has had a huge impact on how I look at technology in general, robotics in specific, approaches to problem-solving, and more. So I was bummed that I missed his talk (and meeting him) at Maker Faire. Thanks to FORA.tv, I didn't miss it, nor did you. His 33-minute talk is a fascinating look at the coming "age wave," the need for robots to help/subsidize an aging population, the role of makers in industrial and technological innovation, discovering where the exponentials are in technology and manufacturing and exploiting them, and much more. Good stuff.

Rodney Brooks: Remaking Manufacturing With Robotics

Megan Simmons of ISKME tells us about the Sun Curve Design Challenge. OERCommons is a place where they are storing and sharing educational resources about the Sun Curve and other educational projects. The structure and systems were designed by INKA Biosperic Systems. You might also check out her photos of the project at Maker Faire.

Bilal has been hanging out with the Instructables folks for a while. When I bumped into him at Maker Faire, he was typically animated as he told me about what they do there.

BoingBoing video visited Maker Faire!

In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

More:

• CandyFab 6000
  
• Yudu Screen Printing Video Review on CRAFT
  

Designing and offering a new invention usually requires making a model
of what you have created. Perry Kaye explains the art of Frankenstein Prototyping
and shows us a new invention and how he built it in this Weekend Project from Maker Faire.

Daniel Carter, our Art Director, writes:

James Provost, an illustrator from Vancouver, attended Maker Faire, and it inspired him to create a sweet set of "DIY spot illustrations" which he's posted on his site and on Flickr. I love the illustrations -- very MAKE!

Thanks, Daniel (and James)! Sweet, indeed.

James Provost, Technical Illustrator

James Provost's photostream

So, what to do with a slightly-used booth from Maker Faire? Well, if you're Dino, of DinoFab, you make a food prep/passthrough counter for your kitchen. Nice that he's still wearing the shirt, too. Memories.

DinoFab

There's a big Open House at TechShop, Menlo Park, this Saturday, 6/13/2009 from 10 AM to 6 PM.

There will be a presentation and workshop by Bob Johansen (Fellow from the Institute for the Future) discussing points from his book on leadership skills for makers.

They're also offering TechShop Maker Faire Membership Specials, going on until 6/15. These are memberships for $75 per month, $375 for 6 months, and $675 for a year. They're apparently selling fast, so get while the gettin's good. Jim Newton tells me they might be full by the end of the week.

TechShop Post-Maker Faire Open House #2

Nathan Hickson made this short montage of some fun things he saw at Maker Faire. I missed most of these things myself!

Dan Chiles is a member of Springfield City Council in Missouri. He visited Maker Faire and wrote about it in the Springfield News-Leader. I think he does a fine job, in a brief piece, of capturing the wonder and inspiration (and the delightful wackiness) of a Maker Faire:

I saw a fire truck that belched fire, and a mammoth mechanical fist powered by shrieking diesel motors and controlled by two guys who sent us colorful hand signals, and a skating Barack Obama robot pulling a human in a cart.

I saw hundreds of homemade rockets hissing into the sky and parachuting to earth, and giant mechanical cupcakes motoring between weird mutant bicycles, and a guy building round aquariums to display gently undulating jellyfish. I saw a $700 machine that reads your computer design and makes an object out of plastic ... or sugar!

I saw Star Wars technology morph with Jules Verne Victorian imagination into an alien art form known as "Steampunk." There were Steampunk belly dancers in a magic show and they drove a car shaped like a giant mechanical copper snail. Teams of young blacksmiths hammered out Steampunk artifacts for wide-eyed kids.

The two guys who made jetting streams of Mentos and Diet Coke famous were there spewing on legions of laughing spectators.

There were buildings full of kids assembling robots, electronics and gadgets. There were buildings of kids tearing apart electronics, gadgets and appliances to see what was inside.

Art cars covered with ink pens and pinwheels or shaped like a shark prowled the parade grounds.

Human beings rode on human-powered amusement rides and listened to rock bands powered by ranks of laughing men and women pedaling bicycle generators.

And I love the Dale Dougherty quote he ends with:

"Do you like what you see here? Then go home and make your own Maker Faire."

Are you ready to remake America?

During Maker Faire, people of all stripes were riding these crazy junkcycles around. I took a moment to speak with Tom Kabat, their creator on Sunday.

Tom and his bikes were a mainstay of Bike Town, an area of Maker Faire that featured many bike builders and their projects.

A former serious cyclist who still loves bikes. An engineer, 30 year bike commuter and bike tourer (Trans America 1976), Tom was inspired to build bikes after seeing other great home built pedal machines at Kinetic Sculpture races and a wide variety of antique bikes on display in museums. He says, "I enjoy Maker Faire as a festival of inspiration and idea exchange."

On his site, he shows many of the bikes that he has made over the years and explains some of how and why they were built:

My epiphany came when was trying to make a large castor wheel for a parade float. I drilled a hole in a scrap of redwood 4x6 lumber and mounted an old Campagnolo bike headset in it. I installed an old bike fork through it and attaching a wheel to make a BIG castor wheel. But many other possibilities emerged. I was also immediately captivated by the incongruous look of an old piece of lumber sporting a fine headset and supporting a fork and wheel.

You might check out Wooden Bikes on Instructables, where there are lots of tips on how to recreate some of these hand crafted vehicles, like the Wooden Wedge.

You can build unusual and useful wood bikes without welding. I think wood bikes should become poplar again. :-) This is a simple one speed wooden bike with coaster brake, fits everyone from little kids to TALL adults. There are no metal tubes in the frame. Wooden' you build with wood if you couldn' weld? I wood.

It's got a 4" Razor scooter front wheel, so it's only safe on smooth roads without potholes or bumps.
Bike is designed so there is not much weight on front wheel. Bigger riders have center of gravity closer to back wheel.

WoodenBikes captured a lot of people's attention at Maker Faire. Kids rode them around, adults tried them out, and many people had their eyes opened about how they could take back bicycle design.

If you have a Prius, and want to go more than a mile in battery mode, then you might want to check out 3 Prong Power

3Prong Power is delivering enhanced Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) conversions for our customers. Our goal is to meet and expand the demand for PHEVs that has been seen nationwide, starting in the Bay Area.

This technology enables using two distinct power sources and enhances fuel efficiency. Take it to the next level, make your car a true Hybrid...Plug it in.

This sounds like a neat system. Certainly it is not free, and the conversion costs fall in a lump onto the consumer's bank account, but in the long term, it appears to save fuel costs and have environmental benefits as well. Refueling with electric takes a few hours, and costs about as much as the equivalent of $1 a gallon of gasoline.

Playcrafter is a site where you can create your own game. Accounts on the system are free, and allow you to make and save your own games. There is also a paid level of account that will let you make games with more than 10 levels and some other features.

Games made with Playcrafter can be embedded into web pages, and can also be run on devices that are Flash 9+ friendly.

If you try this out with your students or kids, let us know about it in the comments.

At Maker Faire, we saw loads of really cool projects. The BeanCat was a clever one, a skid steer chair controlled by a Wii Nunchuck held by the user in a bean bag chair.

The Beancat is an all-wheel drive, battery powered bean bag chair, controlled by a Wii nunchuk. Getting a drink from the fridge has never been so much fun. The low profile drive, frame and controlling hardware are completely concealed so at first glance it's just a simple bean bag.

Imagine a bean bag chair that you could drive around, in or outdoors. A commuting vehicle, entertainment device and relaxation enabler all in one.

---

Why, you ask? Because we wanted to.

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The real challenge here was fitting everything into such an envelope that would not be obvious when looking at the bean bag. We didn't want a bean bag that was simply sitting on top of a big, ugly frame. There should be some degree of mystery as to what exactly is going on here- as a matter of fact, how is that person driving around on a bean bag chair?

Their documentation includes some nice screenshots of the design files for the build. This chair was going nonstop for a good while with a long line of patient aspiring beanbag riders. I was surprised in seeing such a small battery performing so effectively.

The bean bag support frame was built entirely out of scrap wood, hardware and $2 worth of foam from the "House of Foam" in Palo Alto, CA. As you can see, it changed a bit from the rough sketch above. This was the least planned part of the project, as it was simple enough to just do as a last step. The back of the frame is tensioned with a steel cable that runs from one corner up to the top center of the backrest and down the opposite corner. In this way, we were able to keep the backrest super strong, flexible and lightweight.

The bean bag was then stretched over this, refilled with beans, and we were driving!

Here's a video excerpt of Adam Savage's wonderful talk at Maker Faire. He's telling the story of a life-changing experience that's helped form his character and how massively screwing up can sometimes end up as a positive.

MythBuster Adam Savage's Colossal Failures
[You can see additional clips from Adam's talk and watch the entire hour-long presentation on the link above.]

More:

• Make: Online's Mythbusters interview, Part 1
• Mythbusters interview, Part 2

At Maker Faire, the crew used these Xtracycle Radishes to get around. They carry extra cargo than a normal bike and can even be fitted to carry an extra passenger. Xtracycle is offering a deal to makers in celebration of the Faire, so check out their site for reduced Maker pricing until June 14th. Their site also shows you how to make some cool mods to the Xtracycle to carry a surfboard and more. Maker Faire even had a tallbike Xtracycle floating around the grounds! The above pictures are by Kim Dow.

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast | Download for iTunes

Next week: A new series of Weekend Projects from Maker Faire begins!

It's the closest you'll come to getting uncomfortably covered in sticky sugar water without actually being at the Faire for an Eepybird show. Grab your 3D glasses and check it out. This anaglyph 3D video was shot by Eric Kurland of Retinal Rivalry. Thanks, Eric!

Eepybird.com

Every year, at Maker Faire, I have one or more "epiphanies," transcendent moments where I feel joyously overwhelmed by the wonder of what's happening at the Faire -- where it dawns on me how truly amazing this event is and how lucky I am to be a part of it. This year, my epiphanies were smaller, subtler, but I thought they were still worth sharing:

Moment #1: After my robotics panel on Sunday, I went over to finally meet Michael Brown, creator of the amazing Bluerain scrolling LED light installation (seen above). He was talking to an elderly gentleman (I think he said he was in his '80s) who obviously knew something about the technology Michael was discussing. The man was also with a little boy, maybe 5 or so. "You seem to know something about this," Michael said. "I'm a engineer," the man replied, "I used to build robots." Michael looked down at the little boy and said, with enthusiasm in his voice: "Do you know this man?" The little boy said (with equal enthusiasm): "That's my granddad!" And Michael replied: "Whoa. You are SO lucky to have such a cool grandfather!" The kid had the most precious look on his face, like it was maybe just dawning on him that all of the amazing stuff he was seeing at the Faire -- like Bluerain -- his granddad might have had some involvement with similar "cool" stuff. And the look of pride on the grandfather's face was so tremendous it almost made me tear up. I thought about all of the older engineers and other makers of his generation at the Faire and how much joy they must get from seeing so much respect and attention finally being paid to engineers, whom James Kip Finch called "The great makers of history."

Moment #2: I was in one of the stalls of the men's room when a man came in with a very rambunctious small child. Immediately, he started saying: "Don't touch that! Leave that alone. Don't open the doors. Stop looking under there!" The kid was a whirlwind of chaotic exploration. Then I heard the kid say to somebody: "We're a family of makers." Very Ralphie Wiggums. Somehow the whole scene just cracked me up. I think that kid is going places (and probably a few where he "shouldn't").

Moment #3: The last one wasn't a moment, but many, and it wasn't at the Faire, it was on Twitter. As the Faire approached, you could see all of the tweets from people preparing their projects, or just enthusiastically getting ready to go to the Faire. Then, on Friday night, before bedtime, people tweeted before they went to sleep, excited for the coming day. It felt like the night before Christmas and everybody in Whoville was tucking themselves into bed getting ready for the magic that the morning would bring. Really a wonderful sense that we were all collectively getting ready to experience something truly special. Not surprisingly, the next day, somebody actually tweeted: "Maker Faire is the new Christmas."

If you were at Maker Faire this year, what were some of your "epiphanies?"

I frequently have to pinch myself over the fact that I get to know, work with, and be friends with so many amazing and talented human beings. One of those people is Bill Gurstelle. You don't have to spend much time with Bill to realize, as David Letterman likes to say: "He ain't hooked up right." But just as Letterman only reserves such a statement for crazy people he truly admires and respects, I mean this in the best possible way: Bill Gurstelle ain't hooked up right. Case in point: At breakfast on Sunday morning at Maker Faire, he was telling us about his desire to go to a place where he could eat Casu Marzu, the maggot-infested cheese where the maggots try and leap into your eyeballs as you eat it. The breakfast I had just finished took an interesting turn in my stomach, but knowing Bill, I figured I probably got off easy (at least the pancakes and eggs stayed in my stomach!). There's a method to Bill's madness, about risk, living life to its fullest, and the roll that risk/danger-seekers play in innovation, change, and probably evolution itself. He delves into more of this in his latest book: Absinthe and Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously.

Bill has also just begun a guest blogging stint on Boing Boing. It'll be interesting to see what sort of trouble he can get into there.

I just started going through the @makerfaire twitter messages. Some of my faves already, even though I'm not even close to finishing to sort them:

@choklit: @makerfaire was brilliant, exhausting, magical, quirky and beautiful. The best was the many luminous lovelies I connected with. Now, to bed

@quellybeep: full day @makerfaire turned total sensory overload inspiration exhaustion. so many smart ppl brimming w/ creative energy making awesomeness.

@roxycraft: Winding day 2 at @makerfaire. My cheeks are sore from smiling...lol

@emora: At @makerfaire. So tired out from yesterday. But I'm still at it again. Awesome stuff. I want to be here forever http://twitpic.com/6cxm2

@SisterDiane: Pretty much ready to follow @makerfaire like the Grateful Dead. #mf09

Picture above is of the Flatulance-Twittering Office Chair by Randy Sarafan at Instructables. Photo by kentbrew.

I didn't get a chance to take a ton of photos at Maker Faire, but I did catch this dad and his daughter working on this electronics kit together in the Sparkfun tent. I didn't catch their names, so if that's you, post in the comments! I think there should be an international "teach your daughter to solder" day; I didn't learn until college!

Cris Benton writes in:

This year’s event was fabulous and my kite aerial photography group had a fine time. I took a break from the KAP exhibit on Sunday and made a circuit through the Faire with my pole camera setup. I was able to stitch an interior 360 degree panorama in the large hall from 19 images taken at shutter speeds less than 1/30th of a second. At 17,000 pixels wide, the original panorama would print over six feet wide at high resolution and also works well as source for a QTVR.