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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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All the above images were taken by Joester.
I expected the Maker Fair to be good wholesome geeky fun, but I didn't expect it to give me teary-eyes and lumps-in-the-throat.
On the human-powered midway people flung themselves around in the air on beautiful gawky machinery using bicycle technology. It was fossil-fuel-free but in no way smug or preachy, just thrilling dang coolness and exciting fun that made me feel sort of nice about the future for once (albeit in a Russell Hoban kind of way).
There was also a huge hall full of tables, glue guns, trashed computer pieces, masses of other misc. bits of detritus and about 500 kids digging through piles and bending over their projects, completely absorbed in making some groovy weird shit. It reminded me of the Diorama Extravaganza, but on a massive scale. Could've stayed in there all day.
At the gates we were met with SRL-style fireballs that shook the ground and made you worry about your eyebrows. Also a multi-storey version of the old game Mouse Trap, very reminiscent of Der Lauf Der Dinge by Fischli and Weiss. Also a gi-normous walking giraffe-type thing with pretty LEDs and a fibre-optic tail. It talked when you petted its nose.
There's a bit of video here but it makes the rides and fireballs look much tamer than they really were.
Of course there was lots lots more. My favourite art-like presentation was a performance; a guy knitting a red scarf with big drum-stick sized needles, playing his drum kit in time as he knit (video). We also got to meet artist Phil Ross with his sad little plants in glass tubes, maintained with light and nutrients regulated to keep them alive but not growing. "Survive, not Thrive."
We were there for many hours, and didn't even get to see the doggie monorail. I wanna go again next year and help Rob Cruikshank man a booth. Rob, you gotta do it! More fun than anything else ever.
Note: joester and I had competing candidates for most geeky guy at the fair. There were a lot of people wandering around with tinfoil on their heads, but they didn't compare to the pony-tailed dude who'd made his own Segway (joester's pick) or to the white-short-shorts-wearing guy I'm championing, overheard telling a good looking young woman who was working a booth: "There's lots of information on the internet, just use Google."