[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_MTmhPrQgw&w=580]
I might argue that the best thing about Maker Faire isn’t the booths at all, but the people you’ll run into. To that end, I spliced together a series of these impromptu run-ins that I thoroughly enjoyed. What’s remarkable to me is that these people of not weren’t themselves attracting a crowd. If you want to meet the hackers who you respect in the hacking world, you can still have a casual and friendly conversation with them!
First up is [Jeremy Blum] who is a long-time friend of Hackaday, author Exploring Arduino, and one-year member of the Google[x] team. We ran into him along with [Marcus Schappi], CEO of Little Bird Electronics in Australia. [Marcus’] crew recently saw a successful crowd-funding run with the Micro-view.
Next up is [Ben Heck] of The Ben Heck Show. He talks a bit about his recent hack of a pair of texting radios using the eRIC radio modules and he riffed on his past robotic luggage project as well.
The rest of the video is devoted to Hackaday alum. I ran into [Caleb Kraft] who recently started as Community Editor over at MAKE, and [Phil Burgess] who now builds gnarly projects for Adafruit. The clip wraps up with [Ian] from Dangerous Prototypes. He’s fresh off of his Hacker Camp in Shenzhen which covered everything from reballing BGA components by hand, to finding good deals on custom wardrobe, and making sound gastronomic choices while in China.
We talked to a horde of people over two days. Perhaps it was the foam Jolly Wrencher that I wore around? But the point is that everyone at an event like this is interesting to talk to, approachable, and well worth the cost of entry. If you haven’t been to a hacking convention it’s time to start looking around for the one nearest you!
Which maker faire?
this was in san mateo, at the bay area maker faire.
will you be in Raleigh next month?
This show was awesome Eric is so right about meeting people… I met him and also Caleb and Ben! Couldn’t find Ian… maybe next time! Don’t forget many of these events are super kid-friendly and have many activities specifically catered to giving them hands on learning experiences!
I have to say, great work on the audio. Compressor did its job here. Wish others would look 10mins into audio engineering before throwing up weak anemic interviews onto youtube.
I still wasn’t completely happy with the audio here, but i do appreciate the feedback. I’m working on a guide so that we don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel as different Hackaday staff cover live events.
Hey Mike remember me? Person with laser gun. We only talked a bit because some kid sort of ran off with it… I recovered it yesterday, so no worries, humanity is safe ;)
I do remember you. Sorry that I got distracted and when I turned back you were gone. Bummed me out because your laser cutter seemed really interesting. You need to write that thing up and send us a URL! If you need a place to post the info try hackaday.io
I met Ben, couldn’t make the beer meet on Saturday. So much yelling over the tesla coils all day, etc, lost my voice and just wanted to go to bed :)
Good job on the video Mike. Also, as the grouch said, the audio was good. I took any audio effects for granted, but I guess it’s a good thing when things like that aren’t obvious. It was nice hearing from the old crew as well.
I think you would mean [Ben Heckendorn] of The Ben Heck Show unless he got his name changed since everyone gets it wrong :P
You are correct.