I have been going to Maker Faire with my family for years.
At this point, it is just something we do. We walk around, look at projects, talk to people, and inevitably end up seeing at least a few things that make us stop and ask, “What the hell is that?”
Some of the booths are familiar now. There are projects and groups I remember seeing before COVID, sometimes in almost exactly the same place. Maker Faire itself has become familiar.
But I realized this year that I am experiencing it differently.
So What Do You Do?
On the flight home, I was sitting in the last row with another woman. We started talking about where we were heading. She was a flight attendant traveling on her own time, and I talked about why I had been in the Bay Area.
Trying to explain Maker Faire to someone who has never been is actually kind of difficult. I don’t have a good description and it usually goes something like this:
“It’s an event where people come and share things they’ve made. Companies also show up and sell machines like 3D printers and laser cutters. You’ll see artists and creators selling their work, but sometimes they are just showing their work. It’s also very family friendly. There are lots of things for kids with an emphasis on teaching them science and engineering.”
Eventually she asked what I did.
That answer was easy.
Cosplay.
That led into talking about BlizzCon, which I had been at two weeks earlier, and the things I make, but it stuck with me because there was a time when I would not have had such an immediate answer.
Earlier that weekend, while I was eating lunch with my parents, we shared a table with a mother and her young daughter. The mother made apps and was working on a project involving recycled materials.
At one point she asked me:
“What’s your medium?”
I said cosplay.
Then I started listing what that actually means.
Sewing, which I have been doing for a long time. Foam work. 3D printing. Then everything that started growing out of those things.
Foam led to more complicated fabrication. Then I wanted lights. Then I wanted electronics. Eventually I was putting LCD screens into things.
My “medium” keeps expanding because one skill creates a problem that requires another skill.
I thought about that again this week when I went to dinner with my new team at work. We were celebrating one coworker leaving and me joining the team, and everyone started talking about what their “thing” was. Things included rock climbing, hiking, D&D, and reading, to name a few.
Earlier, one of my coworkers had already asked what I like to do.
Again, the answer was easy.
Cosplay.
Before I did cosplay, I do not think I would have answered that question nearly as confidently.
Now I have a thing.
It just happens to be a thing that keeps requiring me to learn more things.
Add It to the Toolbox
Tools learned in Computer Science 101
When I taught coding, I used to show my students a picture of a toolbox. Every week, we would add another skill to it, and by the end of the quarter there was barely any room left.
The point was not that they needed to use every tool all the time. It was that once they knew a tool existed, they might recognize when it could solve a problem later.
Apparently I still think that way.
That is a lot of what Maker Faire is for me now. I can look at a project that has absolutely nothing to do with cosplay and still walk away with something useful.
Maybe it is a tiny LED I did not know existed. Maybe it is a material, a mechanism, a different way of diffusing light, or just someone else’s strange solution to a completely different problem.
I do not have to use it right now.
I just need to know that it exists.
This year, some of the most useful ideas actually came from conversations.
At one cosplay booth, I ended up talking about my Xal’atath pauldrons and the ongoing problem of getting them to stay where they are supposed to stay. One suggestion was connecting them across my back with a clear horizontal rod that could be heat-shaped.
Will that be the final answer? I have no idea.
But I had not thought about solving the problem that way before.
At another booth, I ended up talking about my orbs. That conversation went in a completely different direction, into things like smoke effects and techniques used for miniature explosions and model making.
Again, that does not mean I am about to put smoke effects into my costume.
It means there are now more possibilities in my head than there were before that conversation.
Finding Inspiration Everywhere
The same thing happens when I am not actively asking anyone for advice.
At Maker Faire, I saw someone selling light-up pieces using LEDs that were unbelievably tiny. I had spent a lot of time looking for small LEDs for my own projects, and suddenly there was another option I had not known existed.
I do not have a project waiting for them right now.
They just went into the toolbox.
I also saw a light-up tortoise that made me think about my Xal’atath orbs. The tortoise itself had absolutely nothing to do with what I was making, but the way the light was handled made me wonder whether I could make the illuminated ring around an orb out of a similar white plastic, with LEDs lighting it from inside.
Maybe I will use that idea. Maybe I will never use it at all.
Either way, it went into the toolbox.
That is how a lot of inspiration works for me. Sometimes I find an answer while I am actively searching for it. Sometimes somebody suggests an approach I never would have considered. Sometimes I see something completely unrelated and realize one tiny piece of it might solve a problem six months from now.
Most Ideas Never Get Used
If I ever write a full post about the Xal’atath orbs, a huge part of it is probably going to be everything I considered and did not use.
I looked into a ridiculous number of possibilities while trying to figure those things out: different lighting methods, different electronics, different ways of mounting things, different ways of hiding the hardware, different materials, different ways of supporting the weight, and different ways of making the light look like it was moving.
Most of those ideas never made it into the actual build.
But I do not really consider that wasted research.
Every dead end narrowed the problem a little more. Sometimes learning that something will not work is useful by itself.
Sometimes something gets abandoned because it is wrong for that specific project, then resurfaces months later when I am trying to solve something completely different.
The toolbox does not care what project something originally came from.
Maker Faire Feels Different Now
There were parts of Maker Faire this year that felt very familiar.
There are exhibits I have seen multiple times. There are areas that look almost exactly how I remember them.
But I am not looking at them with the same eyes anymore.
Years ago, a lot of the experience was simply discovering that people could make these things at all.
Now I am much more likely to look at something and wonder how they made it.
What material is that?
How are those lights controlled?
How is that piece attached?
Why did they choose that solution instead of another one?
Could some tiny part of this solve a completely unrelated problem I have?
That might be why talking to people about their projects is still one of my favorite parts of Maker Faire.
Even when I have no interest in making what they made, I like hearing how they made it.
People light up when you ask them about something they are genuinely excited about, and somewhere in that conversation there is often some tiny piece of information that sticks with me.
Another tool.
Maker Faire was one of the places that helped turn me into the kind of person who makes increasingly complicated nonsense.
Now I am coming back with enough experience to look at those same kinds of projects differently.
I think that is probably a good thing.
What Comes Next
We are still going to Maker Faire. It is a family thing at this point, and I do not want that to change.
But I am also curious about going to a different kind of maker event. I’ve already made the decision to attend Open Sauce. I want to try something new.
Maybe I will see completely different projects. Maybe I will talk to completely different people. Maybe I will come home with a bunch of ideas that never get used.
That is fine.
They can go in the toolbox.