Maker Faire 2015

Last weekend was a super busy one for us. On Saturday Ava competed in the Berkeley Kids' Marathon (and won!) and on Sunday we headed down to San Mateo for the 10th Annual Bay Area Maker Faire.

This was out third year visiting Maker Faire and just like our previous visits we had a blast - not literally of course, although there were plenty of things there that go kaboom!

There's always so much to see and do at Maker Faire. Admittedly, we only ever see about half of the displays. It's such a huge event that you'd really need two full days to experience it all. While I'd love to see all of it, the kids are always exhausted by the end of the day. All that fun is tiring!

Like previous years, the girls' favorite part of Maker Faire had to be the Dark Room. So much glowing goodness! They loved the Glow Forest and gave the inflatable trees plenty of hugs. The glowing disco floor, light up hula hoops, electric giraffe and various other colorfully lit displays were a hit with the girls too.

Like last year, another big hit with the girls was the cardboard robot arms. OK, Kim and I might have had fun playing with them too!

Of course, there were plenty of real robots to see as well along with lots of other fun mechanical things. All the best ones shot out flames!

There was a dancing robot too. The cupcakes on wheels happened to turn up just as the kids were dancing with the robot, and within no time we had a robot and cupcake dance party on our hands!

There were plenty of fun things to ride on. Ava and Kim had a go at riding a mechanical unicycle when we first arrived. Later in the day Ava and Lola took turns on individual hovercrafts.

Ava and Lola took part in playing "Mole a Whack" which was kind of like Whack a Mole with the roles reversed. Before they could take part in the game the girls made their own buttons which controlled where the mole whacked it's stick.

The girls enjoyed plenty of other hands on fun including playing a banana piano, carving leather wrist bands, attempting impossible high fives, and positioning and controlling models - which were located next to a scary clown. I know, I know... the use of the word "scary" was redundant there!

There was plenty of stunning artwork on display. Ava and Lola were in awe of the Maker Fair sign made of sequins that twinkled in the sun. I really liked the sculpture made of padlocks, although he was a little creepy!

My favorite artwork though was pictures of ourselves, recreated in dots of colored light. Lola's portrait was amazing with her piercing blue eyes and rosebud pout.

Despite all this high tech fun, one of the highlights for all three of the girls was the giant bubble station. Ava and Lola made bubble wands and then spent a good half hour blowing giant bubbles. Mathilde spent her time trying to catch bubbles and splashing her hands in the buckets of bubble mix!

We had such a fun time at Maker Faire again this year. You know we'll be counting down until it rolls around next year.

 Happy 10th birthday Maker Faire! So glad we could celebrate with you.