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El Refugio

A place on the web for escapism.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Maker Faire 2012!


This year, I volunteered at the Maker Faire...and it was a BLAST! Here are a just a few of the photos from this fun event. My daughter loved the mechanical Giraffe, who later toured the fairgrounds, lit up with LEDs.
 











Frankly, the Maker Faire is a bit overwhelming,with 900 or so exhibitors/Makers, sponsor booths and hand-on engineering tents. Given enough time, I might have attended the Learn to Solder training and skipped sauerkraut making.  Instead, I frequented the Exploratorium, Scrap, RAFT and ... well tons of other exhibits, too numerous to list or even remember! I turned batteries and LEDS into lit up jewelry, and made beautiful music by playing the electronic banana keyboard (with Real Bananas)! The South San Francisco Patch site has a few more photos, and I'll be adding more in the next few days.

My daughter liked climbing into the belly of the fire breathing dragon sculpture, but after a turn through the SteamPunk area, I found this lovely Dandelion Sculpture




This is a working solar powered timepiece. There's a large solar panel on the ground below the clock (just out of the picture).  Comprised of a series of frames, wheels, chains and sprockets, this timepiece is nothing if not unique.

Solar Bike Clockwork