Virtually Maker Faire 2020 Tonight!

We are making Personal Protective Equipment at Home... and our Make story is one of hundreds being shared, virtually around the world. As of last night, with San Diego 3D Printing For a Cause, we have made, and donated 10,336 pieces of PPE, including ear-savers, face shields, and fabric masks, since April 1!

Learn our Make story, and many others at Virtually Maker Faire!

Around the world makers have been rallying, rising up to solve shortages in medical supplies and equipment, turning makerspaces into micro-factories, creating self-organized community networks, and developing clever distribution strategies. For our inaugural Virtually Maker Faire, makers representing 25 countries will share over 350 presentations, demonstrations, and online project exhibits. Programming is curated into five tracks: Community Organizing, Learning & Teaching, Re-Thinking the Future, Design & Production, and Making.

Virtually Maker Faire is a stage for makers to connect, share, and learn with each other and a broader public, and show how the community fostered by Maker Faire has sprung into action, using their skills and talents to solve for human needs.

Plan out your virtual day with the full schedule or meet some of our fantastic makers.

Upcoming Session Highlights
Check session pages or the schedule for updated times.
Making a Global Movement in Crisis: the Story of Open Source Medical Supplies
Gui Cavalcanti, founder of Open Source Medical Supplies, will talk about the role of Open Source in the pandemic and how their group documented the global fabrication of over 7 million units of personal protective equipment, medical and community supplies.
View Session

How Making 3D Printers Widely Available Enabled Covid-19 Solutions: From RepRap to Prusa
Maker Faire Founder Dale Dougherty will talk with RepRap's Adrian Bowyer and Josef Prusa of Prusa Research about the rise of 3D printing and how getting 3D printing in the hands of more people enabled so many of the PPE solutions from the maker community, including developing and testing the Prusa Face Shield and its spread around the world.
View Session

DIY Heroes: Meet the Makers Featured in Make: Vol. 73
The new issue of Make: magazine looks at the maker response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Join Make:’s Executive Editor Mike Senese and the editorial team as they discuss the new issue with the various subjects that are profiled in its pages.
View Session

Pivoting in the Pandemic — Adafruit NYC
Adafruit founder Limor Fried will talk about pivoting production smartly and safely during the pandemic, from making face shields to essential electronic components as their home town of New York City became a hot spot for the virus.
View Session

How to Use Social Media as a Maker Portfolio
Panelists Ana Karen Ramirez, Estefannie Explains It All, Jen Schachter, and Xyla Foxlin will discuss how to leverage social media to showcase your work, create your own maker community, and give a glimpse of the behind the scenes of your processes.
View Session

ArcAttack's Tesla Coil Music
Tesla coil music live-streamed from ArcAttack’s shop as a Grand Finale to Virtually Maker Faire!
View Session

Making Personal Protective Equipment & Plan C

Together with San Diego 3D Print For a Cause, we have been developing, manufacturing, and distributing Personal Protective Equipment to healthcare facilities, since late March. As of May 13, in 42 days, with 28 dedicated volunteers, here is what we have achieved...

Delivered 8,616 PPE articles, including 3,261 face shields.
100+ hospitals and clinics have received PPE, including facilities in California, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and the Navajo Nation.
Thanks to additional volunteers, 425 sewn masks were made and donated. And! These masks can be ordered at SD Print 4 Cause.

Maker Faire, with Make Magazine, is hosting a global, virtual Maker Faire, on May 23! We love making and sharing, and we are eager to see as many of the entries as possible, in 24 hours! We are particularly interested in Make Magazine's highlight: Plan C From Maker Space: "Comprehensive coverage of the community response to the Covid-19 crisis." And we are going to share our own process and efforts in casting PPE, which includes research, setbacks, prototyping, learning, tinkering, and successes... the usual Make journey, with higher stakes.

Making PPE, at home, while doing all of our usual jobs, like programming, schooling, gardening, chicken wrangling, goat herding, cat grooming, cooking, cleaning... It's a lot! We would like to document all of our work, with tutorials, and we need to create some kind of exhibit-virtual presentation for Maker Faire (yikes). In the meantime, if you'd like an idea of what we have been doing, please look for us at Instagram, @boomNerds, and follow our volunteer friends, where we post on FaceBook as "San Diego 3D Printing for a Cause & Friends."

Please! Our work is urgent and meant to save lives...
if you can, Follow, Like, Share, Donate,
we would be so thankful!
Support helps and we appreciate all of it!
Thank you.

Make.com and Eclipse Season

Make.com is helping us prepare for an eclipse season! Today, our post is a visit back to one of the most amazing eclipse experiences we've ever had the pleasure to enjoy, and since it occurred during Maker Faire, it was even more fun... it was a fitting and beautiful finish to a weekend dedicated to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math and sharing! At the end of our second day at Maker Faire, the hot day began to cool suddenly, and shadows shimmered, doubled and turned every edge into crescent shapes. The sun slowly disappeared behind the moon, and everywhere people were pausing to marvel at the occurrence. We got our hands on some safety viewers, and looked up. We shared the viewers with anyone passing by, anyone missing out on the eclipse, and it was like sharing magic. It was like the whole of the rest of the Maker Faire experience, where everyone is sharing and learning, and there is a constant exchange between people who are teaching and learning, giving, and receiving... but in this instance everyone was enjoying the same event, the same science of nature. Somehow, there is a kind of tangible sensation when hundreds of people all direct their attention to a common purpose and all are reveling in the experience, describing, admiring, engaging with each other and with the almost surreal happening. It feels really good, it feels affirming of the positive, thoughtful, inquisitive nature of people. It was inspiring because of the power of nature to unify us in our curiosity and interest, our knowledge, and our eagerness to learn more. The entire weekend holds some of my fondest memories, for the people, the place, the things we saw and learned, and shared, and I hold these moments dear.

We are thrilled to have our photographs featured in Michelle Hlubinka's Make.com article, Packing For Eclipse Season. "The lunar eclipse Wednesday morning kicks off a series of blood moons..." and "then… when the moon swings around to the other side of the Earth in a little less than two weeks, most of the United States (and Mexico) get a peek at a partial solar eclipse on Thursday, October 23rd!" Michelle has suggestions and practical tips for enjoying this month's celestial show, so I hope you will follow the links to her article, and look for her kind remarks about our Young Maker's Club, Love & Rockets! We feel honored to be a part of the good things that happen in the Make community!

Alex, Maria, Bambi, Eli, and Max~
San Mateo, California, May 2012





William's shadow, and the tree's, with the crescent edges created by the partial eclipsing of sun, where a small bit of the sun, like a ring of fire, makes these strange, beautiful forms. Michelle writes,
"... you don’t need to use fancy equipment to play with and witness this beautiful moment. All you need is a tiny hole. Take a piece of opaque board or foil to project the image of the obscured sun, pinhole-style, onto a flat, white surface the right distance away. Forget your hole at home? You can even make a tiny aperture with a curled finger or fist (as William, of Maker Club Love & Rockets showed us.)"

Throwback Thursday to Maker Faire 2013

This is a Throwback Thursday post, Maker style!

And these are some Makers!
Alex, Max, Maria, Geoff, Natalie, Suki, James, William, Amanda, and Cameron~ Maker Faire, Bay Area 2013.

{Last year's visit to the Faire was epic, but something of a wipeout... we lost the brakes on our behemoth, in the middle of L.A.... this turned into a 15 hour mess... I will spare you the details. We came >< this close to turning back, but through sheer will, and passion for Maker Faire, we stayed the course. The long, exhausting, obstacle strewn course! I think I drained all my batteries, not just from the drive up, but from the insane levels of high pitched fun we had the rest of the time, too! Today, a small glimpse of a big adventure... one I hope inspires you to join us at the Faire, The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth! }

Delayed, and devising our plan a b c d... plan M, Brave Sir Robin reminds us to always have an emergency strategy. Never give up. Never surrender!

We got the RV serviced and safety overhauled, and ten hours later, with mere minutes to spare, Geoff dropped me at the gates just in time to collect our badges, and registration packets! We made it! And the relief and joy I felt were indescribable. I cried. It's true.

And for this, it was all worthwhile. I kid you not, the synchronized bass fish and lobsters, singing and clapping, to Rock Lobster, this alone, made all of our efforts pay off, and I felt like I could go home happy.

These four guys from Houston Texas, with their Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, have created my all time favorite art car, ever, ever, ever. Until I can ride in the Nekobus, Sashimi Tabernacle Choir will reign supreme in art cardom greatness.



Lobsters and bass... riveting performers, absolutely riveting!

First thing in the morning, we were just hearing them tune-up, and I was already totally smitten. "What can be more annoying than a singing fish? Try 250 of them bolted to a Volvo, singing opera."

Okay. Before we go forward, a few background points:

1. This is the Maker Faire, Bay Area.

2. We go and demonstrate the accomplishments of our Young Makers, and mentors, Love & Rockets, Art & Engineering.

3. We have been going to the Faire since 2010, and we were so smitten we organized a Young Makers Club, and determined to return with as many friends and makers as we could rally.

4. 2011 was great. Seriously. Really great.

5. 2012 was our Maker Prom, and it was seriously really great, too!

6. And last year Love & Rockets Young Makers Club was featured in the Make Blog!

7. It would be my pleasure to write at great length about everything. I could do that, except laundry etc. Also, I don't want to scare you/wear you out/overuse the word "awesome." I'll share a bit, and I hope that if anything captures your imagination, or raises a question, you will leave a comment, ask your question... I will be happy to tell you more, or just confirm that you really should get to a Maker Faire in your area!

Maria and James making sandstone beads with bamboo tools. Awesome.

You can buy things at the Faire, but there are many, many things to see, ride, do, make, and enjoy that are free with admission.

Makers are generous, and awesome. Robin is generous, and awesome.

This is a tire swing. It's making music, and lighting up, with Maria's movement on the swing.

In the tire swing is an iPhone.

Think-Love-Create is awesome.

Max, Alex and James, playing. I have never heard the statement "Don't touch that," at Maker Faire.

Maker Faire is a celebration for all the senses, for everyone. It is awesome.

Max and Maria sharing their Maker Faire projects. Maria taught wool needle felting, expanding on her wool demonstration from 2012. Max shared his methods for making foam weapons.

They taught, shared, exchanged, and engaged for four hours, and drew big, enthusiastic crowds.

Tots, Suki, and Alex. New visitors, every year. It is awesome.


This young maker enjoyed learning how to needle felt so much that she made a thank you gift for Maria.

Young makers, and experienced makers, all makers have a place at Maker Faire.

Everyone can learn something at Maker Faire.

Maria's turn to learn something new. Something MakeyMakey, from SparkFun.

Grant says Awesome!

Maria is making circuits, and the creative vibe is magnetic.

Cameron and Amanda, more awesomeness.

You can learn how to make cheeses at Maker Faire.

You can enjoy an awesome East Bay Urban Agricultural Alliance moment at Maker Faire.

The year before, he had one wooden arm and hand, and this year he has two awesome, wooden arms!

The Faire gets busy, but we always meet people that are happy to slow down, talk, and listen. Makers engage with each other, they share their ideas and their time.

Makers share their awesome hats.

We fell in love with the tiny homes Ward Hensill builds.

We think this over hang would look good on the side of our barn.

William and James, hanging out with a Bodega Portable Building.

Awesome biking power for music on the Pedal Powered Stage.

Awesome bike.

Every awesome mode of transportation... futuristic, artistic, real and imagined.

There is no end to all there is to see and do, to inspire, at the Maker Faire.

Anyone feeling nostalgic?

This year, Kits By Kids is working on a hovercraft. Reminds me of the hovercraft Alex designed and made. We met this Young Makers Club, Kits By Kids, at our first visit to the Faire.

A homemade sub. That's awesome. Scary, but awesome.

Also, awesome.


If you want to bounce in, out of the sun, you are welcome to enjoy the the Breast Stop.


We like to think, make, tinker, play, explore, and we like to see new things, learn new ideas, and bring people together to enjoy the same.

Maria, Sean, and the l.e.d's!

At the end of the day, we descend, en masse, at an area restaurant, where Robin and Shawn bedecked all the waitstaff, and us, with awesome light emitting diode creations!

Perfect ending to an awesome day.

Is it any wonder we look forward to going back?

We hope you can visit a Maker Faire, soon.