North County Mini Maker Faire

Paul~ He is a friend and champion of Mechathulu, our frequently evolving robot beast.

Alex~ He brought his newest tent, with the temporary covering that I whipped up for the occasion.

Paul and Maria~ Maker Faire is all about making and sharing, but none is possible without good friends.


Simon, and his family, are here with Junkade.

Besides Mechathulu, we also brought the Infernal Percussion Engine, a glockenspiel that plays, powered with a bicycle pump!

Our robots are favorites with visitors, because we hand over the controls! And maybe you noticed? FIRST 2102 Team Paradox is at their first North County Mini Maker Faire... great outreach, Paradoxians!


Bex is a natural with needle felting, and she only got better! I love her chicken, and when she started a taco-cat, I had to make one, too.

Alex shared his woodworking art, and introduced robots.

William and Geoff have been making a lot of new experiments with resin 3d printing, mold making, developing metal alloys, and casting.


Maria and I had our hands full with our hands-on activity... teaching needle felting at a faire, to all ages and skill levels is a big undertaking! Bex was a quick-study and we soon had her help, too.

Michael, Darlene, Seth, Gary, and David~

Simon and Geoff~

FIRST 2120 Team Paradox's newly elected president of outreach can solder! Great seeing you at Maker Faire, Natalie!

William and I solder our own Makey Makes, too. And we hope these won't be our last... I am too sad to talk about this, just yet.

Gary, David, Michael~

Ido and Matt talk programming and 3d printing programmable robots.

Lucas and those clever little diy robots.



Here is something awesome... Maria's art and design, 3D modeled by William, and then cast in our own alloy of bismuth and tin. That's a Parrot Ox... Paradox!

Mike, Geoff and William talking about casting metal, and our own alloy mix, which we are calling BoomNerdium.

A nice thing about exhibiting a tent at a faire, is having a place where you can duck out for a bit.



And after the faire closes for the day, and we've secured our gear, we can treat ourselves to good eats and great company.

June 16 :: Day 2 at The Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum and Mini Maker Faire, on Father's Day
Before the gates open the makers have a chance to visit and enjoy each others' exhibits, and this morning concert with Bruce Thompson was one of my favorite times of the day. He took requests, and shared back stories about the music. It was beautiful.

Leslie and Bex got an introduction to Geoff and William's casting projects.

James< too, got to see firsthand what we have been up to lately. And we continued our discussion about the future of Maker Faire and our hopes and ideas, going forward.

One of the skills that goes well with needle felting is hand sewing and embroidery, and since it was a quiet morning, I had time and focus for teaching a couple of children how to sew little felt pockets and bags.


Maria has been exhibiting at Maker Faires since 2011, when she taught wet felting in San Mateo. This year she was very happy to exhibit something personal and all her own... her projects she made at home, and at school, in her metals class. The Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum has an awesome blacksmithing barn, and so there were plenty of makers and visitors to appreciate and admire her skills in metal working.

Doctor Artemus Peepers... aka Dean LeCrone (IG @deanlecrone)

Lucas, who we've met at Scratch Day, and Ido, the Junkade master... we're basically just hanging out with our friends, enjoying a nerdy Father's Day.

More samples of William and Geoff's projects with modeling, photogrammetry, resin printing, casting. It's all learning, making, playing, failing, trying again, and sharing!

And making new friends! Sitting across from Sawyer Cigar Box Guitars was lovely, because we were hearing little concerts all day.





Look who's here for some Father's Day fun... Paul and Amira. Another kind of making that's great at this event is definitely the food, like this roasted corn, and the corn bread they made in the wood burning oven from the corn they milled on site. We love all the making!



TACOCAT... thank you, Bex! Thank you AGSEM and San Diego Maker's Guild! Thank you, Maker Faire, for dreaming all of this up in the first place. Thank you, BOoMNerds, and all of our maker friends and family. Good things are better shared, and we love to make, play, and share.

A Maker's Announcement

Geoff ordered some aluminum. Or did he bid on it? I'm not sure. He's got a system... a bargain finding, deal making system, and that's how we score big pieces of aluminum to weld a storage setup for our workshop. It's also how we, after years of searching and hoping, score a big piece of CNC machinery...

This almost feels like an adoption announcement. Allow me to formally introduce our newest member of the BOoM-Nerd Family, the bride of Frankenrouter, Elsa the CNC mill...



Frankenrouter was built to mill wood, and other softer materials. Elsa will mill metal. When Geoff joked that this 2 ton machine would be the bride to Frankenrouter, I immediately pictured wide-eyed Elsa Lanchester's iconic portrayal of the reluctant bride.

She came from the theater department of San Diego State University... ha! another nod to a dramatic lineage. And she came "as is." The first thing Geoff discovered was a stuck collet (stripped drawbar threads.) It took some doing to figure out how to resolve this, but Geoff saved Elsa by boring up into the collet. This was precision work, and risky. He couldn't see exactly what he was doing, because of the angle of the pieces, but the operation was a success.

"Let's just call it 'innovative' fixturing," Geoff explained on FB. Sounds good to me.

Ido was the first to meet Elsa, and other friends have been by. Packages arrive, and now I know they're for Elsa. It's like a newborn is delivered, and she has needs, steals all the attention, receives gifts. Geoff announced, I have to go to the lumber supply, late one evening, and he came back with a blanket for Elsa.

This morning he texted me... it's a link to another thrilled Maker, making his own proud adoption announcement. Geoff could not be more giddy, I think. It's like he and Adam Savage have been on the same baby honeymoon, with mills.

This? Oh, this is just a baby picture of Elsa. Geoff found it when he was searching the Internet for her history, lineage, early years. He keeps it in his wallet.

Congratulations, Adam! And happy Making!