A Quick Make Shout of Joy!

This is one of those times when I am so revved with joy, with exhaustion, with new ideas for next time, and with a wild desire to share every last drop of an amazing event... that I don't know where to begin, that I stall, and feel incapable of doing it justice. All my feels are on hyperdrive, you guys!

We worked and prepped, and drilled, and packed, planned, plotted and played, to get ready for San Diego Maker Faire. Just preparing was getting so intense and challenging, I was wondering how we would get through the actual event. But, we were like wild, mad thundering nerds, with passion in our veins, metal shavings on our seats, and a Viking tent tied to the roof of our van... we were unstoppable!

Two vehicles were solidly packed with robots, tools, chairs, a table, supplies, people, that Viking tent, food. Everything.

Maria, Maddie, Emma, and William.

Day 1: We were outside, and this was possibly one of the more quiet moments of the first day. It was a non-stop flow of visitors to Maker Faire, with William, Alex, Max, Maria, Paul, Janece, Amira, and Bambi, Geoff and I setting up, taking down, and demonstrating all. day. long.

Natalie, with Dale Dougherty, and me as awestruck as the first time we met.

Maria can tell you all you need to know about how Da Vinci works, from the Z axis, to vector illustrating. Here she is explaining the works to her teacher, June.

Day 2: We were rained out... or in? Luckily, we were welcomed into The Hall of Champions, where Dan Hendricks graciously, and enthusiastically, made all the accommodations we needed to bring in Da Vinci, our drawing robot, and also to operate the Giant Robotic Tentacle, Mech-Cthulu! On this day we were, again, blessed with the tireless company and contributions from Paul and Janece. James, Celine, Ruth and Holly were great help, too. This is nothing that can be done with out kind help, and we feel so thankful to everyone who pitched in.

This post is a drop in an ocean of all I want to say about our club, about Maker Faire, about our plans. Look for more, here, at BOoM, soon!

Great Things...

1. Every friend, new and old, that came by, hung out, played, cheered, hauled, packed, and fed us. Of all the things that went on at Maker Faire, we were most thrilled with sharing the joy of this event with great people.

2. The look on someone's face when you hand them the controller to a 9' tall, 40lb Giant Robotic Tentacle with 36 pneumatic cylinders!

3. Already finding social media shares... {BOoM's Viking tent is at the beginning and check out Mech-Cthulu 3 minutes in! Thanks, Jennylou!}



4. Being so engrossed in doing what I love that I am not disappointed about basically missing an entire Maker Faire! {That's a bit of paradox, there!}

5. My family, and the friends who are like family.

BackYard Mini-Make

We did it again... a homegrown, mini-Make event and Lemonade sale!
It starts with lemonade. Fresh squeezed. We invite all of our friends, put a sign up at the Little Free Library, then dust off our bots, spruce up our tent, and get ready to play, tinker, share, learn, and make. Donations for those homemade cookies and lemonade go toward replenishing supplies... like duct tape, paint brushes, clay, epoxy, sandpaper, drill bits, and pizza. Our Young Makers Club goes through a lot of epoxy, and pizzas, and we like to share with everyone.





This post is a Big Thank You! Thank you, Paul... for all the pre-event support and heavy lifting. Making, and preparing to make, always goes better with help. Thank you, James... for explaining our purpose, in such succinct and lyric prose. You give us that air of totes legit:

"A glorious Sunday to ye all!
Come one and all to the Bird House, humble abode of the Van V. folk, for a lovely time of comradery, creativity, and cuisine. What cuisine (you ask)? That of the gods: a potent symphony of lemonade and cookies awaits your face-stuffing. The best thing about face-stuffing is that it often goes hand-in-hand with patronage.
Some of you may be wondering what the purpose of such patronage is. Well, you see, there happens to be a retinue of creative folks here who appreciate utilizing the industrial, artistic, and intellectual resources of the House of Bird.
So while we socialize, nosh on snacks, and sip on liquid snacks, we will be bringing and working on whatever projects need our love. We shall raise aggregates of magic metal and cotton that will allow us to buy infinite quantities of duct tape, gorilla glue, pistons, 3D scans, MIDI controllers, circuit boards, cloth, yarn, butter, flour, and all the like.
Come celebrate the manipulation of space-time events by sentient biological systems!"

Thank you to friends who came from near and far, who were curious enough to see what a "Lemonade & Robots & ChickenBlog" event is all about. Thank you for your support, for playing, for sharing your enthusiasm, interest, knowledge, and company. And I must thank my family, who want to create things, who cannot not make things, but who don't necessarily need to promote what they are doing, yet endure my aggressively friendly passion for sharing their accomplishments; indeed anyone's projects, interests, tinkering, making, learning makes me want to celebrate... It's a huge reason why I maintain ChickenBlog, as well as this blog.

Max finishing his pasta and hot glue bridge for Physics. Long may it stand!

Friendly customers, lining up!

So. Makey Makey? Lani and her daughter brought their Makey Makey, so it could get figured out... any takers?

Here is Da Vinci, the line drawing robot that first appeared at the Maker Faire, Bay Area, in 2012. Of course, he was only a hand, then.

Bridge complete, and ready to take on AP Physics bridge challenge. This is the first time the bridges are not balsa wood, but their fate is the same!

Isaac and James take the Makey Makey challenge, and build a strawberry, banana, and apple band that actually plays music. Yes, it is appalling that I do not have video of this, but trust me, it was pretty epic.

This has definitely inspired us to host another day to tinker with Arduinos.

Arduinos, and Scratch, and Java programming... these things are like magnets, drawing Young Makers into the greatness of S.T.E.A.M.

Chris F captured this moment, showing the big draw of programming with Scratch. Not just playing games, writing them!

Isaac, Paul, Suki, Amira, Grant, and Gabe... so good to see old friends.


Nathan, James, Matt, Nick, Isaac, Gabe, Grant... and campfire dinner.


The chickens and goats are never neglected. Isaac made friends for life when he sat with Tasha and Ada and brushed them.

Some of our youngest Makers, Maria and Amira.

In the back, William and Alex, then Max, James, Nick, and Grant, with Suki in front of all of them, and on the other side of the travel weary bot (he survived Fanime... barely} Matt with Gabe and Isaac, an inspiring lot, all.


And just to round out the day, we went half way Over the Garden Wall.

Our second lemonade sale and robot event, was a success, for sure!

Make Code Now

First day in JAVA.

And... she's hooked.

World Domination


It's a JAVA smile. She is a programmer, now.

{Thank you, Fab Lab, San Diego, and League of Amazing Programmers}

This morning Maria was at the computer developing a game with Scratch. {Do you Scratch? It's programming made accessible for young/beginning programmers, from MIT.} Maria illustrates, animates, and writes programs for games, puzzles, and fun animations. This has been going on for about three months, ever since Amira shared the site with her, and Maria loves it! She shares it. And she's added programming to her list of things she wants to do when she grows up. Anyway... enough background. This morning she made a fish catching game, with a hungry cat who catches fish falling from the sky, before they hit the water and swim away. It's clever and hilarious. And evidently, it's challenging. Geoff cannot beat her high score... not yet!

Turns out, you don't have to "grow up" to do what you love. When Maria tells us about a new interest, a new "I want to be a ______, when I grow up," my response is: "Cool. You'll need to learn about that, and practice it." And then I look for ways for her to begin, now, like cooking with her, and taking care of the garden with her so she can open her own restaurant, and sharing the joys, and heartaches, of keeping chickens and goats, because she wants to be a farmer. Maybe it stems from our home schooling days, but mostly I think it's just our family's irrepressible curiosity and need to make, tinker, play, explore, build, take apart, fail-try-again, and share that pushes us to do the things that spark our imaginations, to jump into the projects and ideas that form in our heads, our hearts. So, we make things, and go to Maker Faire, and dabble in crafts, with lasers and routers, and epoxy. You never know when something begins, like an interest in robots that may lead to passing along interests and skills, that could eventually take you to competitions, and championship events. And it doesn't really matter if that interest ever leads you to the "job," to being "that thing when you grow-up," because the real point, the actual gift, is in the journey, in the doing and tinkering, and failing, and trying again, and following another idea, new interest, doing more, and sharing it.

Maria is programming with Scratch, and in JAVA. She's begun. And she loves it. It's inspiring Geoff and me to host another tinkering day with Arduinos, soldering, code writing... we don't want to wait until we've grown-up to follow our interests, either.

Think :: Tinker :: Play :: Make :: Program!

Rather spontaneously, a get together happened... an Arduino tinkering gathering at the kitchen table. Lucas was the first to arrive, and he and Maria went straight to playing with the Circuit Scribe. Do you know Circuit Scribe? Please, visit Electroninks and discover a whole new world of circuitry play and making. This Circuit Scribe belongs to James, and he and Alex R arrived in time to help us test out our A-frame tent... but that's for another post!

Alex R happened to come into possession of a second-third-fourth-hand Quadicopter, in need of an overhaul. After it was determined that the little drone needed a lot of TLC, best for another day, they got ready to break into the Arduinos: {"Arduino is a family of single-board micro controllers, intended to make it easier to build interactive objects or environments." Thank you, Wikipedia.} Basically they are tiny, yet open-source mighty computers, ready to interface with devices using sensors and actuators. They're a hobbyist's building block for fun and creative, programmable projects. Alex used Arduino to make his infinity mirror-light mask.

Geoff and Alex have tinkered with the Arduino, making various light projects and effects. Now, we were finally getting the chance to get the Young Makers Club involved. There wasn't a specific goal for this first Arduino Gathering... the initial accomplishment was getting everyone set-up, and in synch. Not too glamorous, but finding the correct cables, enough outlets, and sorting all the bits and parts took some time and effort. Everyone came with varying levels of supplies and resources, and gaps were filled so everyone could be more or less equally equipped.

And of course, no two computers ever behaves the same way, but they were able to successfully get all those issues squared away, too. Soon there was actual programming happening, and soldering.

Maria has become hooked on Scratch: Imagine, Program, Share. She has been doing just that for about a month now, and she is just as eager to take on C and C++!

I am concerned that in some schools having computers, and students using apps and computer programs constitutes their idea of 'computer education,' of being 'computer savvy.' But that's like implying that knowing how to turn on a television is an education in electrical engineering, or movie production. Using software is a handy, necessary skill, but it has little to do with comprehending how software is written, with understanding the origins of making things happen. We need makers, not just users. Writing software is a powerful skill and an essential foundation of our economic independence, and intellectual security. Knowing how to buy a laptop is a helpful ability, but on top of that... knowing how your computer works, understanding the connections between hardware and software is a critical skill for keeping up with the new pace of the working world. I hope that more schools, more clubs, more educators will embrace the teaching of the manual skills, the practical arts, and the fine arts, that enable these empowering proficiencies. Soldering, wiring, circuitry, programming, welding, art, music, math, dance, science... we cannot absorb these through apps on a pad! We need to tinker and make them our own!

Arduino, using open source hardware, is made to give the user the control, the creative access to making, and building.

Lucas, Maria, James, Alex R, Alex, and Geoff.



Lucas programmed his Arduino to play music!

Light! A big accomplishment... no kidding. These first steps, the troubleshooting, and figuring-out is where the learning happens, and from there the improbable becomes possible. I love the process, seeing the effort, the mess, the frustrations, too... because in this comes comprehension, appreciation. It's not in an illustrated manual, no one is doing it for you, then handing you the switch. So when you tinker, and think, then work at it some more, and the light finally works, it's brilliant!

Maria switched from Scratch to making her earrings. I think the good tools, and creative vibe inspired her.

Young Makers are great makers.