Digital Arts Maker Faire trip – day 1

written by Ella, Alex K, Noah, Gabe, Alex MC, Bill, Lexi, Cillian, Sarah & Jac

“I can sum up the day in 5 words: walking, sitting, eating and guitar-hero-ing” – Cillian

We started the day hanging out at SeaTac in Terminal A and were mesmerized by a kinetic sculpture by Seattle artist Trimpin.

We boarded our Virgin America flight on time and “There were no snakes on the plane (says Noah).”  The entertainment system was broken but we thought Cillian could fix it…by the time we took off it was working again.  Alex MC watched Hannah Montana – Ella watched the College World Series on ESPN.

SFO has cool hand drying machines that Alex K tricked into turning on without drying anything.  Lexi sat on the people mover railing and floated down the terminal.

We took a shuttle to the hotel and checked in.  They gave us free toothpaste and hairbands!?  We ate our lunch in the hotel courtyard and tested the hotel wifi connections on various electronic devices.

3rd form of transportation for the day – we took the CalTrain into downtown San Francisco and then walked 2 miles through the Mission district to Noisebridge, an incredible hacker space.  We arrived unannounced and got a super tour of the facilities by Ani Neo – she showed us the tinker space, the electronics lab and the danger room.

We also saw some installation art, such as the Game of Life and one of the original Teen Hunger Force Adult Swim LED ads from the Boston freakout.

“I didn’t want to leave Noisebridge” -  Bill

We met Adam and Raphael from NYC Resistor, who are in town for the Maker Faire.  Adam has a 3-D printer called Makerbot and will be doing demos at the Faire – we hope to see all our new friends on Saturday.

“Amazingly awesome and I was extremely jealous of their workspace.” – Noah

Once our brains were full, we walked 2 miles up Van Ness to Japantown.  We walked by City Hall and then stopped at the Peace Center.  After a short rest, we carried on to Jac’s brother’s house, where we ate pasta, broccoli and ice cream and played a couple hours of collaborative Guitar Hero World Tour.

“The Stevester is awesome!” – Alex MC

We ended with a mile sprint to the train station (we missed our train by 6 minutes) and then hung out for a half hour until the next train.  Back to the hotel by 11pm.