One of the great American folktales is that of the inventor laboring in the garage. William Hewlett and David Packard started their business in a garage (HP), as did Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (Apple), and Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google). These are but a few of the best known examples; for each idea in a garage that changed the world, there are a hundred more that only pleased the garage owner. The United States is a nation of tinkerers. We build, we modify, and we extend. We like to make devices do things that they are not designed to do, just to know that we’ve done it.

This spirit was alive and well over the weekend at the San Mateo County Expo at the Maker Faire Bay Area. The Faire was sponsored by Make and Craft, two magazines for home-based builders, creators, and weavers of all kinds by geek how-to book publisher O’Reilly. The Faire brought together fabrication companies, educators, tinkerers, sustainable living advocates, artists, and geeks of all kinds.

Some of the highlights included:

• Game development hardware and software was present in great abundance. This ranged from the new Microsoft gaming and mashup software site Popfly to demonstrations of various game development kits like the XGameStation Pico
• Science education demonstrations were also out in force. These ranged from the very kid-friendly displays of the Exploratorium to more adult activities (like Jacob’s Ladders and fire breathing) from Instructables
• The Faire proved that there are still lots of people doing interesting things to cars and trucks. One exhibit showed off a Porsche 914 with a rebuilt engine that included an open-source fuel injection system. Another was all about a 1958 Ford F-100 truck that was converted to bio-diesel.
• The Bay Area Lego User’s Group and Train Club
  had a huge LEGO train layout on display, with several loops of rails, a rail yard, buildings, and several trains running at once.
• The folks from linuxastronomy.org were there to show their Linux-controlled telescope mount, made using some belts, flywheels, and stepper motors.
• Vintage computer aficionados had several different kinds of displays. These ranged from working examples of the Commodore PET, Apple II Plus, and the Atari 400 to a truly impressive fully functional recreation of Charles Babbage’s No. 2 Difference Engine made from old Erector Set parts.
• There were many lively presentations on topics ranging from Do It Yourself Chemistry sets to ideas in Steampunk art and costuming.
• Planes and kites were present. These ranged from different people showing the planes they were assembling at home to kite photography camera rigs.
• Robots were absolutely everywhere at the Faire. There were small insect-like robots, remote controlled, actual size replicas of R2D2, and large menacing Survival Research Labs-style robot gladiators. Two different kinds of Robot Wars arenas were available — one for wheeled robots, and one for robot boats. There were also much more benign, artistic creations like the Electric Giraffe.

I had a ball at the Maker Faire. I spent three and a half hours there and I don’t think I saw everything. Parking was a little difficult because the Faire was very well attended, but the organizers were on the ball and had free parking shuttles at the ready. One very good piece of advice: if you plan to attend a Maker Faire, buy your ticket ahead of time (even if you pick it up at the “Will Call” window). Other than that, the Maker Faire was an absolute blast. I heartily recommend it to geeks of all kinds.