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Archives: Dale Dougherty

Call for Rocky Mountain Makers

We're organizing a Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, July 10th in Aspen, Colorado in association with the Aspen Ideas Festival. We'll be at the base of the ski lift in Gondola Plaza from 10am to 3pm. We're organizing Make activities and fun things to do for families.

We are planning for about a dozen makers to participate. Note that we'll be outside under tents so things that work well inside under controlled lighting might not work so well here. Rockets, kite-aerial photography, mobile robots and music making should work well.

If you're a maker in the Rocky Mountain area and like to participate in the Aspen Mini Maker Faire, please contact Kate Rowe (kate at makezine.com). Also, if you're interested in helping out in other ways, please let Kate know.

I'm looking forward to bringing a little bit of Maker Faire to the Rocky Mountains. If you live or vacation in the area, please stop by and see us on Saturday July 10th.

From hackerspace to outer space: A Maker Faire preview

For the fifth year in the Bay Area, Maker Faire welcomes thousands of makers of all ages who show us the amazing things they create. Here's a preview of some of what you can expect to see and do at Maker Faire Bay Area 2010, May 22 and 23 at the San Mateo Expo Center.

Spacebridge Panel Discussion

Expo Hall



"Noisebridge, the San Francisco hackerspace, has a space program now," wrote Ed Hunsinger on Laughing Squid. They launched a balloon that rose to nearly 70,000 feet, taking pictures of the Earth below. 

Mitch Altman of Noisebridge will also lead a Hackerspace Panel discussion on Sunday at 1:00 pm on the Innovations Stage in Expo Hall. The panel will feature representatives from HeatSync Labs in Arizona, Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, as well two Detroit-area hackerspaces.

Near-Space Balloon Hibal

Expo Hall


Three college students built a balloon and sent it to near-space, an altitude of roughly 90,000 feet, and carried a 4-pound payload of sensors and cameras.  It cost them about $800 to build.

Parachute Mobile Mark Meltzer & Michael Pechner

Outside at the Bay Area Amateur Radio Exhibit
Talk Sat. 5:00 pm at Center Stage.


Parachute Mobile is taking ham radio to new heights.  Mark Meltzer combines skydiving, which he's done since 1968, with ham radio.  Recently, he jumped from 18,000 feet carrying equipment not only to conduct voice communications during the jumps, but also to relay GPS data and physiological sensor readings to the ground and to the internet via VHF telemetry.  The data produced the Google map seen above.

Open MAKE @ Exploratorium: Motion and Mechanisms

This Saturday, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, we'll have our fourth Open MAKE session beginning at 11 am in the McBean Theater followed by ongoing activities in the Tinkering Studio from 12:30 to 3pm. Our theme is Motion and Mechanisms, which allows us to explore the world of toys and toymakers. We'll also get a glimpse of the projects that Young Makers have been working on for Maker Faire, including a fire-breathing dragon. Several of the Young Makers will have their work on display in the afternoon session.

At 11 am, we'll feature four makers who will talk about their work and answer questions.

• Brad Prather is an 87-year-old maker and folk artist from Petaluma. Brad hacks toys, adapting their power source from electric to solar. Come see his amazing solar-powered whirlygigs and gizmos.


• Michael Brown is an SF-based sculptor and designer who creates large-scale public artworks including Bluerain, which appeared at Maker Faire last year and was then installed at the Library at the London School or Economics. He will be talking about a project he's organizing in association with the Exploratorium for Maker Faire where 30 artists will be taking apart kids' toys and the re-assembling them in new ways.
• Adam Tobin, Director of Exhibit Development at the Exploratorium, is also an entrepreneur and an award-winning toy inventor whose creations included Frigits, Tub Tunes Water Flutes and Drums, and SuperFort. The Studio Gallery will feature his marble clock along with a wall of interactive mechanisms Adam created for the space.
• James Sears is a NY-based artist and the developer of The Orb, a spherical surface display that can project any image or video. The Orb was at Maker Faire several years ago and is coming back this year. It will also be on display at the Exploratorium on Saturday. Quite simply, you have to see it to appreciate it.

A display of Brad Prather's Solar-Powered Toys

The activities in the Tinkering Studio area are really special, the thoughtful product of Mike Petrich and Karen Wilkinson and their team at the Exploratorium. It's a great opportunity to engage young makers in fun hands-on activities. After all, this is all about making new makers.

Please join me and the Maker Faire team at the Exploratorium this Saturday. BTW, today is the fifth anniversary of the first Maker Faire, which was April 22-23 in 2006. The Fifth Annual Maker Faire will be May 22-23, 2010 at the San Mateo Expo Center. Get your tickets in advance and avoid waiting in line!

Earth Day 2010: Caring for things

Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios. -- John Prine

For Earth Day 2010, iFixit.com has announced an ambitious goal: To teach every person on Earth how to fix each thing they own. To that end, iFixit has expanded their wiki-like platform for online repair manuals beyond the Apple product line. In this interview, Kyle Wiens, co-founder of iFixit, talks about developing an appreciation for repair and tapping into the expertise of DIY communities who share what they know how to do. It's about learning how to care for things that are broken instead of throwing them away.

Don't you hate when that happens!

Dale Dougherty: What do you think will make more people *want* to repair things?

Kyle Wiens: Repairing things yourself is almost always cheaper than replacement, so convincing people that repair is a good thing actually isn't that hard. The tricky thing is convincing them that they can do it. So I think the biggest thing we can do is to make repair as easy as possible, and accessible to as many people as we can. We've found that providing people with step-by-step photo instructions ahead of time makes all the difference in the world. Rather than saying "I don't know if I could ever fix my iPod," they look at the photos and say "Oh, is that all it takes? I can do that!"

We need to get back to the days when repair was something we took for granted. When my dad was growing up, it was commonplace for people to maintain their own cars. People don't tinker with cars as much anymore, and that's a shame. This is partly because our culture doesn't value things as much, and partly because cars are much more complicated now.

Fortunately, technology can make it easier for us to fix things. Tinkerers worldwide are connected now better than ever before, and we are planning to collaborate with them to write a free, open repair manual. Our hope is that comprehensive, easy to follow service documentation will make repair accessible so that people will be excited about making their things last longer.

Sledgehammer fireworks during Carnaval

First off: don't try this at home. Or in your town center or shopping mall. Really, this is crazy stuff. Repeat "crazy." You won't see this one at Maker Faire.

Last weekend, I met John Ward who lives in San Miguel, Mexico. He asked me if I'd ever heard of "sledgehammer fireworks." He and his wife recently visited San Juan de la Vega. He explained that the Carnaval celebration began with a procession through town and then a mock battle. Next they try to blow up a train. These are all the preliminaries for a group of young men breaking out the explosives and taping them to sledgehammers. They swing the sledgehammers, striking an I-beam on the ground. Boom!

Here's a link to the incredible YouTube video: Sledgehammer Fireworks

Watch as Ron, one of the couple's friends, accepts the invitation to swing a loaded sledgehammer himself. All I can say, should anyone decide to go to San Juan de la Vega, is watch out for the other guy with the sledgehammer. If they don't care about their own safety, they surely don't care about yours.

This has to be the craziest town celebration ever.

John's wife's blog is Living in San Miguel and her "Sledgehammer Fireworks" post gives more background on this unusual festivity. John's blog in ManyMinds.com.

Saturday's Open MAKE @ Exploratorium: Making Music

Everyone loves music but making your own music is the most fun. Especially for young makers. Music can be a gateway to becoming a maker by learning how to build instruments and exploring different ways of making interesting sounds.

This Saturday, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, we will have the third program in our series for Young Makers. In a collaboration with Pixar, TechShop, the Exploratorium's Learning Studio, and MAKE magazine, the Young Makers program mentors middle and high school students in building projects that meld math and science with craft and creative inspiration. Our goal is to encourage more kids to engage in making things, and ultimately, create more opportunity for young makers to participate in Maker Faire.

This month's program features makers exploring new and unusual ways of creating music. Our program kicks off at 11 am in the McBean Theatre, with performances and discussion with Ge Wang, Krys Bobrowski and Walter Kitundu. Then, all young makers are welcome to participate in several different activities organized by the Learning Studio. It's an opportunity to discover new ways of making sound and meeting innovative and creative makers who are making their own kind of music. Please join us and make some music of your very own.

Ge Wang

An Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Ge Wang is the founding director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk), and the co-founder and director of the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO).   He is also the designer of the popular Ocarina iPhone app, which turns the phone into a musical instrument.   Ocarina is one of the products from Smule, which Wang co-founded.   Ge Wang writes that his mission is to deeply explore new ways in which people think, do, and interact through sound, technology, and music.

More on Ge Wang

Krys Bobrowski

Photo courtesy of Exploratorium

Krys Bobrowski is a sound artist and musician.   She has been featured at Maker Faire, playing her kelp horn, a musical instrument she made from drying kelp that washes ashore on the San Mateo coast.  She is on the faculty at the College of San Mateo and coordinator for the Electronic Music Program there.  As part of her collaboration with the Exploratorium's Learning Studio, Krys played with air- and helium-filled balloons as resonators for her music, and with steel plates and electric conduit tubing as sound sources.

More on Krys Bobrowski

Walter Kitundu

Walter is a builder of musical instruments, a composer, a sound and visual artist, and a DJ. He is a multimedia artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium, and constructs elemental turntables that rely on wood, water, fire, and earthquakes for their power and pitch control. One of his most recent works is called the Ocean Edge Device. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008.

More on Walter Kitundu.

Here's a link to photos from our previous Open Make programs at the Exploratorium.

Finding a maker: A true story

On Sunday morning, I was out for a bike ride. On the way home, I took a shortcut from one road to another and had to walk my bike through a small gate. Once through the gate, I saw on the pavement, beside a blue Volvo, a twenty dollar bill and two singles, flattened out. Found money is always a pleasant surprise, but I realized soon that it meant someone had lost it. I knew there was a young family in this neighborhood and I wondered if in their haste to get the kids in from the car, money had fallen from a pocket.

Nearby where the car was parked, I saw a garage, partially opened. I approached and called inside. Initially, there was no answer, so I called again, a bit louder. "Yes," came an answer. "Just a minute and I'll be out," he continued. A few seconds later, a man my own age emerged. His hands held a clipboard on which sat an HP calculator.

I said hello and told him about the money. It wasn't his, he said, even though it was his car that was parked outside. The young family lived across the street and weren't home at this time. So I gave him the money to give to them and he slid it under the clip on his board.

I noticed a blueprint of some sort on his clipboard. "Are you doing some kind of engineering?" I asked. He smiled broadly.

"Well, I'm designing a toy airplane," he replied and showed me his drawing. He was shy about it, like a kid.

"Really," I said. "That's what you're working on?"

"Yes," he said. "I've got a shop where I like to work."

"I do MAKE magazine," I said. "Have you heard of it?"

"Wow. I'm a subscriber. I love MAKE," he said with a big smile. "I've been to Maker Faire each year. It's wonderful. MAKE's a national treasure." I smiled back.

I introduced myself and he told me his name was Mike. He's a physicist who works at Agilent (a company that was split off from HP). "We're neighbors," I said. "I just live around the corner."

"You know, there's a maker right over there," Mike said, pointing to another house. Mike told me that the man makes a widget to monitor home hot water usage. It learns about when you use hot water and then regulates the production of hot water so that you're not running your water heater all the time.

"You should come back and I'll show you around my shop," he said, describing his shop in some detail. "I converted my garage when I moved here. That's why all our cars are parked outside."

We exchanged emails, then shook hands and I continued on my way, thinking how you can find makers everywhere, but finding one unexpectedly down the street is truly special.

Marty & Otto's Joyride

Here's one to share with the kids.

Mike Rivamonte, an artist from Miami, FL, created this cool UFO sculpture based on sketches for a story about two aliens. He said it was his "first DIY-inspired build."

He tells the story behind the sculpture in this video, based on his sketches.

Mike says that "Marty & Otto's Joyride" is "my first narrated anything so there is plenty of room for improvement, but I am pleased." You can find more of Mike's work, including some cool robot sculptures at: mrivamonte.com.

Mike had help from Garrett Mace of Macetech with some of the programming of the sculpture.

Wear It Well, Young Makers (2/27)

Join the MAKE team along with Pixar and TechShop for the Young Makers program Saturday (2/27) from 11am to 3pm at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA.

Our "Meet the Makers" session will begin at 11 am in the McBean Theatre. Our goal is to explore the work of a variety of makers and gain insight into the maker mindset. I will ask some questions, but we hope kids will have their own questions to ask these makers. This program will feature smart fabrics, soft circuits, and wearables. We'll see examples of how electronics is literally being woven into clothing and increasingly incorporated into the world of fashion.

Our featured makers are:

Adrian Freed

Adrian Freed is Research Director of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) program at Berkeley. He uses smart materials to teach electronics to kids. He will also talk about how conductive fabrics can enable new ways of making music.
(For more, see Adrian Freed's web page)

Grace Kim

A graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, Grace Kim will talk about construction techniques in wearable technology (as in the garment shown above). Her work has been displayed at the Future Fashion Event, at Viaggio Telecom in Pisa, Italy, and the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) in San Francisco. (For more, see Grace Kim's NYU Thesis Project)

Daniela Rosner

A Ph.D student at the I-School at Berkeley, Daniela will talk about recent developments of the Spyn project, which now uses a Nexus One mobile phone to capture the stories people associate with handmade objects. Her work was featured in this article [PDF] from CRAFT magazine. (For more, see Daniela Rosner and Spyn Project).

In the Open MAKE session that follows from 12-3pm, we'll have several hands-on activities on the Exploratorium floor demonstrating "soft" circuits and working with conductive fabric and thread. (We think that these activities are geared toward ages 12 and above but younger kids can participate but might need some additional support from parents.)

• Build Your Own Bling - Make simple circuits (LED-battery) for rings, barettes, or pins.


• Sew-a-circuit - Learn embroidery techniques with inspired by electronic designs.

As I've mentioned previously, the goal of the Young Makers program is to demonstrate to kids different modes of making and encourage them to make things. We also hope the program will develop young makers who exhibit their own work at Maker Faire. Members of the Maker Faire team will also be present. Come by if you have questions about how you, your school or organization can participate in this year's Maker Faire.

Gather your kids and their friends and join us at the Exploratorium this Saturday.

Young Makers at the Exploratorium

Last Saturday, we had the first Open MAKE day at the Exploratorium as part of the Young Makers program. The day's program focused on hands-on activities for building circuits.

The program also featured BlinkyBugs and Bristlebots and welcomed their makers, Ken Murphy of Blinkybug.com, and Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman of Evil Mad Scientists Laboratories.

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