10am to 4pm at 1700 NE Lincoln Road (at the corner of Caldart Avenue, just down the road from the NK High School).

12:01AM: It is OFFICIALLY Kitsap Mini Maker Faire DAY…. Come on out and enjoy the sunshine with us.  There is something for everyone. Street Donuts (from Seattle side) is going to be there making yummy donuts. R2D2, C3PO and a host of other robots will attempt to eat these donuts. Get there early!  There are 70+ makers, 8 unique areas to explore at the Faire this year. You don’t want to miss it.

BONUS: We have a fun treasure hunt for kids with prizes for the first 100 to complete it!! Ask at the ticket booth.

Here is the FULL List of Makers for Today.

So I just learned this lesson again. Always check the simple stuff first (like is it plugged in?).

It all started out innocently enough…

Last week a computer was returned from the land of the useful with the simple label, “broken”. We have had some of these units blow capacitors (which we (actually Danny) resoldered and revived…but that’s a different story). Some have had power supplies go bad, so when I plugged it in and turned it on only to find nothing…no plaintive beeps, just nothing; I looked inside for blown capacitors…nothing visible. So its the power supply, right? I spent some quality time unwiring and removing the power supply thinking that I would swap it out with a spare unit I had laying around.

When it was out I just happened to look at that nifty little red switch on the back of the power supple that switches from 240 to 120 volt supply….. By now you are way ahead of me…but right…someone (somehow) had switched it to 240 volts. The “broken” computer is instantly back to working order and is now functioning with its little red switch set on 120 volts where it was supposed to be all along.

Remember the simple stuff. See you at Kitsap Mini MakerFaire…I’ll be the one checking to see if my equipment is plugged in.

North Kitsap Metal Recycling is a big supporter of Kitsap Maker. They may be our biggest one, but undoubtedly, they are the most enthusiastic!! Just about every week, the owners Beth and Dennis Kommer, do something to help out our Mini Maker Faire or something else to spread the word about making, makers, inventors, DIYers. They tell people about us and introduce us to very hip people.

We wanted to say a special thanks to them and to congratulate Dennis on his newest way to upcycle — he takes cast iron pans that come into their metal recycling center and gives them new life, in the form of unique and fun art — for the backyard and elsewhere. Of course, Dennis will have a display at this year’s faire on June 10. Look for him next to the metal recycling center van. His new business and website: Rusty Soul Creations by Dennis Kommer.

If you need to recycle or sell some old scrap metal, visit the North Kitsap Metal Recycling website. They don’t charge, either — any size load is free to drop off. Check their site for things they accept and the few things they cannot.

I love Inkscape.  I really do. I started using Inkscape when I was looking for an easier way to design the KitsapMaker logo for this year and didn’t want to use GIMP to trace over a hand-drawn sketch (yes, very neanderthal level, I know). I started out only being able to draw a circle and a box. Then I looked up some tutorials and learned how to make a gear (with a little built-in-render cheating). Before long I was throwing together gears like a pro and even doing some quick mock-ups for other projects, slowly finding new abilities of the program and learning how to do things I would have thought graphics wizardry before.

A while ago I volunteered, or butted in, to help with a project to create a desktop catapult (keep your eyes peeled, it’ll be making an appearance shortly) and in the process of drawing, redrawing and tweaking the design I learned quite a bit about many more of the apparently inexhaustible plethora of abilities that Inkscape has, like how to center objects on each other, dimensioning  using different units, and lots of other fun stuff. I had some more fun when I designed the graphics for the KitsapMaker T-shirts for the Kickstarter project we recently completed (you can see all of those designs here and look for the designs at this years Faire) .

My latest foray into Inkscape was  a selfish one. I got tired of looking at my wallpaper ( it was a fixie bike, I wanted a real bike with some knobby tires) but I liked the aesthetic. One day I realized that it looked kind of familiar and that it was kind of like a scalable vector graphic (Inkscape output file)! I immediately went to work drawing up a sweet set of wheels that I could stare at all day long and dream of riding. I probably doubled what I knew about inkscape by the time I finished the project, and had a great time doing it too. Because I want to share the awesome capabilities of Inkscape and I hope to inspire someone to learn something new I want to share my drawing, but only if you promise to go draw something yourself! (You can download Inkscape from their website)

(You can download the picture on my deviantart)

Recruiting makers and sponsors for the Maker Faire is hard. For every maker who comes to the Faire, there are ten that turn us down.  That’s why we are all eternally grateful to Modern Device.  Modern Device is an online store that sells electronics boards- sensors, microcontrollers, and electronics components.  Looking for sponsors for a first time event wasn’t easy, but Paul at Modern Device answered our e-mail and was kind enough to send us some kits to give away at the Faire and our soldering workshop.  All of the winners were excited to assemble their kits and learn more about microcontrollers.

I assembled a few of the kits myself, and they went together easily and quickly.  Modern Device has great assembly instructions and manuals for all of their boards, which is something that I really appreciated being a beginner.  All the kits I assembled worked right away and I had no problems. There are endless possibilities of what you could make with a microcontroller, and if you order from Modern Device you are assured that you are supporting a great company and will receive awesome customer service.

This week I visited with the Poulsbo Middle School Tech Ed program to hear more about what they are making. They have an Epilog Laser Cutter, a full wood shop, full metal shop, welding station, foundry, and a bunch of other cool stuff in Tim Eaton’s classroom. Wow. Lots of great energy and enthusiasm. We’re hoping to see some of his students at the upcoming Kitsap Mini Maker Faire, of course.

During the short time I spent in Tim’s class, I was impressed with the student’s projects and knowledge and interest. Several students came up to ask me questions about various maker booths that I talked about and how we made different things work, etc.  They showed me wooden gears cut with the laser, cardboard houses, small motors with propellers mounted on formica, and a variety of projects. Kitsap schools are on the right track.

Then I went next door to the Art and Science teacher’s room. Kate is on fire for teaching young people about science and art and where they fuse together — which is what just about every maker is about, too.  I’m hopeful that we’ll have a booth of Poulsbo Middle School student projects and we may have a surprise device to “spark” your curiosity. Think static.

It’s good to know we have maker neighbors.

Forgive me if this seems like something that you’ve know since kindergarten, or if you find yourself saying, “Everybody knows that”. The problem is that I forget this over and over and then end up suffering the consequences…so I hope this simple reminder helps you.

We all have too many projects, right? Or too much work…or whatever. We all start to feel overwhelmed by “life” sometimes. What you may need is a little celebration. Before you roll your eyes and explain that you do not have any time for this….Let me explain.

The normal cycle that we humans go through is 1) Face a Challenge, 2) Work on the Challenge 3) Reach a Solution/Conclusion and 4) Celebrate Success (or survival at least). Only we (you know you do this too) always seem to jump from 3 straight back to the next “1″ (no time to celebrate…). This “short cutting” our need to celebrate leads to burnout…

There is no need to plan a block party every other day (that would take precious time away from projects)…we are just talking about taking the time (anywhere from 2 minutes up to that block party) to stop and observe what you (and probably your team) have accomplished and really acknowledge and take pleasure in the good that you did.

Its that simple. Go solve a problem…finish a project…survive today and then CELEBRATE.

When you hear the two words, Raspberry Pi, your stomach may start making noise. If you read my first sentence, you may think that I misspelled the word pie. Pi is the correct spelling, however, for an impressive new credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. What makes it impressive isn’t the small size, but the small price — the Raspberry Pi sells for $25.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation started because this cool team of people wanted to make computers more affordable, as in super cheap $25 and a $35 “upgraded 2 USB port model”, for kids to learn how to program or at least not be afraid to test ideas and mess with the parts of the computer. Or part, in this case.

According to the website: “It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.”

It is about 3 and 1/4 inches long by 2 and 1/8 inches wide and less than 3/4 inch high. It boots from an SD card and you can read the FAQ which has plenty of interesting and useful specifications details here. There’s a bit of a wait to get one, but you can pre-order them by following the links on the main site. All in all, it is an amazing new direction for computing and one that has a lot of people talking and waiting to get their hands on one. Let us know if you have one and bring it to the Kitsap Mini Maker Faire!! We want to see you at the event and at the Computer Build-a-Thon station.

Oh, and Adafruit introduces their add-on board in the “Ask and Engineer” video last week (the first 5 minutes or so). http://youtu.be/znOMiWkpWeo

June 10 Update:  71 MAKERS!!!!

MAY 16 UPDATE:

The other day I was perusing the posts on KitsapMakers Facebook timeline and when I stumbled across one in particular I became a bit  embarrassed. The questions posed was this: “Where can we see a list of makers for this year’s faire?”. My job is to be the “Maker Guy” I deal with the makers, I list them, organize them, and advertise them since one purpose of the faire is to show the community the Makers in their midst. I haven’t done so well in fulfilling that job description because, there is no list for everyone to explore! My eternal thanks goes to anyone who asks a question that exposes a flaw in what I’m doing and makes me fix it, and Darla Buhler has indeed done just this. Now, thanks to her, is a little preview of the makers that we have so far!

Dennis and Beth Kommer  -  North Kitsap Metal Recycling and Rusty Soul Creations

Without the help of North Kitsap Metal Recycling there might not be a Kitsap Mini Maker Faire! This year the crazy creations of Dennis’ Rusty Soul Creations will be a much anticipated addition.

Caroline Stein  -  Washington State Science and Engineering Faire

Brad Griffith  -  Craft Stick Bending

Chris Stone   -  Star Wars Droids

Chuck Strahm  -  Hansville Coasters

Doyle Maleche  -  Electronics, etc. (etc. means “and the rest (of such things)” and it’s really true)

Mark Cambell  -  Carve-a-Tron

Jeff Iller  -  Woodcarving

Pamela Belleson  -  Studio Wide Mouth Frog

Patricia Humphrey  -  Grandma Patty’s Crafts 

Paul Roush  -  Segway test drive

Carrol Grady  -  Quilts – English Paper piecing

Lauren Silver  -  dropspindlespun 

Karen Olsen   –  Knitting / Crocheting

Vicki Bower  -  Angel Cat Creations (Sewing)

Rob Showman  -  Kit sap A.R.C.S. (R/C)

Mary-Lou Luddington   –  Native Jewelry 

Dixie Armfield-Rogerson   –  Eastern Wind Glass 

Don Bingham   –  Metal lathe

Sallie Nau  - Seattle Porcelain Company Inc.

Todd Hansen   –  InTheWorks Inc.

Corinne Beach  -  Underwater Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV)

Matthew Dockrey  - Attoparsec (He’s planning to bring a super cool railroad handcar !)

We have an awesome group So far and we look forward to seeing what they bring this year ! If you know someone you think should be at this years faire then tell me, calebrexin@gmail.com, or get them to apply quick!

(a.k.a. Looking for a Few MANY Good Volunteers!)

Get your FREE T-shirt & admission by becoming a Kitsap Mini Maker Faire Volunteer. We are in need of friendly and fun-loving volunteers for our upcoming June 10^th event. If you are at least 15 years old, and sign up, get approved and show up for 2 shifts (total: 4 hours), not only will you get in FREE, you will also get a FREE, very COOL, limited-edition by Caleb, 2012 Kitsap Mini Maker Faire t-shirt, while supplies last. Last year we ran out so sign up and pick your size as soon as you can. Check out our sign up page here.

We have many volunteer openings available covering14 hours, from Friday afternoon setup (12-2pm) to the Sunday event close (4-6pm). You can choose where you’d like to help out, from tickets to clean-up, to assisting at the popular Segway Ride or the always busy Bike-Lube-&-Tube or the creative Lego Build or whatever else suits your fancy on the list. We will assign based on need, but will as much as possible, take in consideration your interests first. So come out and join us!

We will be having a Volunteer Orientation in May – details will be sent out by email. This meeting will put you in the know for the June 10th event, confirm your shifts and assignments, and prep you for the fun, creativity and excitement that is the Kitsap Mini Maker Faire.

By the way, the 2012 Kitsap Maker Kickstarter project is almost funded. As of today, we have pledges of $1495 – which is within reach of the $2000 goal – we just need $505 more to be fully funded so we can get the flash curing unit that will make the custom-made, hand-printed t-shirt process much easier. A big thanks to the many backers and supporters who have pledged so far. If you’d like to join us in this effort, jump to this link.

*You must be 15 or older. See details above and sign up here!