Maker Faire 2014

This past weekend was a super busy one for our family. Saturday we cheered Ava on in the Berkeley Kids Triathlon and on Sunday we headed down to San Mateo for the "Greatest Show and Tell on Earth": Maker Faire!

We had been counting down the days to Maker Faire pretty much since we visited last year. Ava and Lola had an absolute blast at Maker Faire last year and we couldn't wait to take them again. And this year they had a new little maker to go with them!

Mathilde was pretty much the perfect baby during our day at Maker Faire. And by that I mean that she slept almost the entire day! How she managed to sleep through the sound of robots demolishing large pieces of scrap metal or the electrifying band Arc Attack is completely beyond me, but I'm glad she did. Maker Faire also made things easy for parents attending with young babies by providing a nursing tent. Being able to feed Mathilde somewhere out of the incessant wind was a godsend. Oh my, was it windy!

Like last year, there were so many amazing things to see at Maker Faire. It's hard to know where to start. Robots and crazy mechanical contraptions and creations were a big favourite with the girls. Especially those that shot out flames! So many flames...

Another firm favourite with the girls were the lighting installations in the Dark Room. A glowing dancer sculpture floated around the room on a large balloon, the Electric Giraffe entertained visitors, a glowing cat-mobile delighted children and Arc Attack put on electrifying performances. Lola was excited to see the inflatable glowing forest installation that she had remembered from last year. She absolutely loved it back then and she loved it again this year. Those inflatable "trees" received more than a few hugs from Lola!

The girls were keen to play with as many hands-on displays as possibles. They helped decorate a Jeep in Lego, played robots in cardboard costumes, controlled a water loving robot and used it to squirt each other, tried their hand at unnecessarily high fives, controlled a painting robot, made and launched rockets, and played music with a saw.

Riding crazy bikes was also a favourite. There weren't as many kid sized bikes this year as there were last year but the girls were happy to watch Kim ride those that they were too little for, which was most of the bikes.

One of the great things about Maker Faire is that there is always so much to see as you walk around.

We had such a wonderful time at Maker Faire again this year. Time to start the count down again!