Maker Faire

The Maker Faire is a convention for do-it-yourself enthusiasts held in San Mateo this year. This is the first time I've been to one of these conventions, and it was indeed quite interesting. It presented people with an opportunity to showcase their creations. Aside from the various booths, there were some quite unusual displays such as fire-breathing sculptures.


The huge gift shop, the Maker Shed, had various books and kits on sale. It in a way brought me back to my childhood days when I would browse book sale catalogs we received from school for science books and craft kits. Today, there was one book that caught my eye in particular. Someone very special to me used to send me notes with Food Play stickers.


In the afternoon, EepyBird, the people behind the elaborate coke and Mentos geysers, performed a pretty impressive show. They gave out the Coke Zero bottles after the show. I managed to get a hold of one of them. There was still about liter of coke left, and the Mentos were still hanging out at the bottom. It tasted quite good actually, though slightly flat. At the end of the show, they announced their upcoming coke and Mentos car video, which will be filmed in 3D. Apparently they even published a paper on the coke and Mentos reaction.


EepyBird also announced that OK Go, who they were big fans of, was slated to play later that afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the band play.


Elsewhere, I found that Microsoft and HP had booths here too. The Microsoft booth had an air cannon from which they were giving out free T-shirts. I managed to catch one of them. The HP booth featured TouchSmart PCs and touchscreen printers. Remembering their recent acquisition of Palm, I asked them, "so, when are the webOS tablets coming out?" One of the representatives replied, "we'll see. Good luck."

By the time we left, I was inspired to try to build something creative on my own. But I think I'll stick to code for now.

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