As we have done every year since the very first Maker Faire in 2006, BayLUG has a display at this year’s version of Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA.
We set up the display Thursday and Friday, and were open to the public Friday afternoon. Friday was a lovely sunny day, but Saturday it rained all afternoon and more rain is expected tomorrow. Of course, our display is indoors so we stayed dry, but a lot of the Maker exhibits outdoors were having a rough day.
The rain wasn’t the only pall hanging over this weekend. An article with the ominous headline Next week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo could be Bay Area’s last was published a week before it began. I ran into Maker Faire founder Dale Dougherty Friday evening, and told him I really hope they figure out a way to keep it going…
My Caltrain model was particularly popular, especially since you can look out the window of the building and see and hear the real thing go by several times a day from Maker Faire, which is right up against the train tracks. Someone from Caltrain’s social media team came by and took photos of it which were shared on their Facebook page Friday evening. But after over 10 years of displaying it at Maker Faire, shows, conventions, and other club events, the 9V motors had started to fail and Friday we weren’t able to run it for much of the day. However, another veteran train builder and club member (Bruce Chamberlain) helped me take apart the electric motors and apply fresh conductive grease to one of them, and swap out the other which seems to need more work, and then it worked great. It ran most of the day today as well.
Anyway, if you’re able to come out Sunday, I hope to see you there! And I especially hope that Maker Faire can continue, even if it is in a smaller form, for years to come.
Click the photo above to view a photo album of the pics I took today (Saturday) of our club’s layout.
