Maker Faire in San Mateo

05.22.10

This was our first time going to the Maker Faire, and it was interesting to say the least. It was like going to the Exploratorium, but filled with mostly 6th grade science fair projects. Our tickets were $25 a piece (ouch!), but we did find free all day parking (about 4 blocks away). There was a parking lot right across the street from the San Mateo Fair Grounds, where the event took place, and they were charging $25 per car. It sucks how people take advantage of others when they can. Just like the wedding and baby industry.

Here are the highlights from the day, and the inventions that I thought were pretty cool.




You could tour the Raygun Gothic Rocketship.




This was like a giant piano, the keys would go up and down when you turned the red wheel on the right side. No, this did not make any sound...that would have been better.



These muffins were whizzing by everyone at the fair. There are actually people inside maneuvering these delicious looking pastries. They are put together by Acme Engineering.



A neon land shark that was attached to a RC car. One of them were speeding around, trying to trip people out.

This was probably the most exciting thing we saw there. An experiment performed by EepyLab that consisted of 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos. It was windy that day and we could feel/taste the sprinkling of the Coke Zero...yum! Fortunately, for us we sat far back enough where we didn't get soaked by the coke, unlike some other observers. So, it was worth it to wait the 30-40 minutes just to watch this 20 second performance.

Remember this? This was the dog statue near the San Francisco Zoo.

Food

These paellas were huge. It didn't look appetizing though.

We shared a Pabellon (chacapas filled with shredded skirt steak, sweet plantains, black beans and cheese) from Pica Pica. The fries were from another food booth. They were beer battered garlic fries...so good!

Overall, I don't think we'll go back next year, but it was still fun to check out.

bye for now...

*bri*