[Photo taken at the Flickr / Yahoo exhibit]
I don’t remember how I found about the Maker Faire, but for some reason it had been on my calendar for weeks, maybe even months, to go to the twice yearly fair–they hold one in San Mateo and another in Texas.
Coincidentally, my brother was in town visiting our relatives in Tracy, so I asked him to come with me because it definitely is something that would be right up his alley.
Essentially the Maker Faire is a convention or gathering of sorts for readers of Make Magazine, which is basically a do-it-yourself tech magazine for uber-geeks, nerds and dorks.
Just how dorky these readers and enthusiasts are, I did not know until I really saw them in the flesh. I mean I consider myself to be a pretty nerdy guy–I love technology, read tech magazines and blogs, and adore gadgets to the point of personifying them and giving them names (i.e. Shaquanda my, now, 2-year old Treo 650… don’t even ask me what her full name it). But if you think I’m nerdy, you haven’t KNOWN nerds, until you watch a crowd of people go gaga over a manmade lightning exhibit (the Tesla coils were so cool!) or watch a similar crowd cheer and jeer at battling wedge robots (wow… I cannot even describe to you the nerd-itude that was).
Anyway, all-in-all it was a great day spent with my brother. We walked around to a lot of different exhibits and saw a lot of new and old and remixed technology.
That’s a homemade whale!
That’s me INSIDE the homemade whale!
See the fire on the top right corner?
The final nerdy straw…