[HN Gopher] Open Sauce is a confoundingly brilliant Bay Area event
___________________________________________________________________
Open Sauce is a confoundingly brilliant Bay Area event
Author : rbanffy
Score : 297 points
Date : 2025-07-23 10:22 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jeffgeerling.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com)
| simonw wrote:
| I went to this and really enjoyed myself. Do you like
| enthusiastically interrogating teenagers about robots they've
| made? You should, it's really fun!
|
| I also got to play a 3D printed violin, and meet a lady who had
| built a terrifying battlebot that was too vicious to be allowed
| in the arena at the event as it would have broken straight though
| the safety plexiglass.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| _meet a lady who had built a terrifying battlebot that was too
| vicious to be allowed in the arena at the event as it would
| have broken straight though the safety plexiglass._
|
| I think we all deserve to see a video of this battlebot. It's
| been a tough week.
| stavros wrote:
| I have now made it my life's mission to compete in these
| events with my newest creation, suicidebomberbot.
| simonw wrote:
| Sadly I forget to take photos of that one! I got some
| pictures of the 3D printed violins though: https://gist.githu
| b.com/simonw/e5be5cbe96073c09a468307e4cb61...
|
| Those are by https://www.neoluthy.com/
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
| adolph wrote:
| > Do you like enthusiastically interrogating teenagers about
| robots they've made?
|
| Definitely one of the joys of being a FIRST robot league
| parent/volunteer.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| I was there too and was looking for you! My friends all used
| your OpenSauce tool
| zxexz wrote:
| Jeff Geerling is one of my favorite public figures (I'm not sure
| how far or if I'm stretching the definition of public). I keep
| meaning to subscribe to his patreon, I mean that's the least I
| could do - I think he's the only creator I consume the content of
| on 4+ platforms. And occasionally he shows up here too. I just
| love the sheer "making things" energy, and all the open work he
| does.
|
| If there was, say, a Patreon equivalent that was just a static
| site that displayed an address to send weird or excess hardware,
| cash, etc to, that would be so ideal!
| Flipflip79 wrote:
| Strongly agree for the same reasons. I don't subscribe to his
| stuff for any particular niche, I just enjoy the "this is a
| thing I am going to learn lots about and make a video".
| poemxo wrote:
| Same, I read everything he writes. I remember reading a bunch
| of his stuff when I was getting into ansible, and then all his
| Pi stuff especially when CM4 came out. It's a strange sort of
| parasocial relationship but for nerds!
| granra wrote:
| This may not matter to everyone but he is very pro-life and
| attended anti-abortion protests in the past. While I don't know
| his current stance but you can find some disturbing writing on
| his blog if you go back far enough:
| https://www.jeffgeerling.com/articles/religion/abortion-case...
| pohuing wrote:
| I think you meant to write anti choice not pro choice.
| granra wrote:
| Thank you, I edited it to pro-life
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I find it odd that you call it "disturbing". He studied
| "Divinity and Theology" and the first sentence says that
| someone asked him to "outline the Church's response to
| abortions", which he then did, mostly by quoting articles
| published by the church.
|
| (We probably both disagree with him on the topic and the
| arguments, but that's secondary to my question.) Which part
| of him stating his opinion is "disturbing" to you?
| granra wrote:
| Fair enough, I may not have picked the best example while
| skimming it quickly (he seems to have thousands of posts on
| his blog). I didn't like him using the word "pro-abortion"
| though (and not pro-choice) which to me seems to be used to
| villainize the other side.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I'm thinking no one is _pro-abortion_.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| The terminology issue of abortion gets insane airtime for
| something that I have to assume has never been
| meaningfully persuasive to anyone. The guy thinks you
| think it's okay to kill babies. You think the guy thinks
| it's okay to control women's bodies and deny them medical
| care. At that point, who cares if he wants to call your
| position "pro-abortion" and you want to call his position
| "disturbing"?
|
| Are people really wavering in the middle, eager to pick a
| side but terrified of being labelled as anti-choice or
| anti-life? Maybe kids are deciding their position based
| on which words sound nicer rather than agreeing with /
| rebelling against their parents? And these kids already
| know enough that "pro-abortion" means "villain" to them?
|
| You rarely (or never) see a discussion about, say, Trump
| turn into a litigation of whether it's okay to call the
| opposition libtards/rwnjs/SJWs/MAGAts, but that stuff has
| to make up more than half of abortion discussion. Is it
| just that people are loath to actually talk about the
| issue at this point and this is another outlet?
| granra wrote:
| What I saw as disturbing was the content of the post,
| failing to see that he wasn't directly voicing his own
| opinion on the matter.
|
| I didn't like the use of the word "pro-abortion". I
| generally address them as pro-life even though I don't
| like that it indirectly indicates that the other side
| would be "anti-life" but I agree that it's not productive
| to get into a flame war on terminology.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > I didn't like him using the word "pro-abortion" though
| (and not pro-choice) which to me seems to be used to
| villainize the other side
|
| Considering that the pro-life side is typically called
| anti-woman or worse, the scales are hardly unbalanced
| against the pro choice side.
| granra wrote:
| Logically I see your point. But one side is fine with the
| other side having the opinion to not have an abortion
| under any circumstances while the other is fighting to
| take the right away from anyone to have an abortion. So I
| feel like one side has more reason to go for the anti-*
| card, although I don't think it's very productive.
| nixgeek wrote:
| So you approached "Who is Jeff?" by driving by his blog,
| searching across thousands of old and new posts, seeking
| out things you find triggering, and then went to HN to
| say you found this? That's one way to spend Saturday, I
| guess!
| granra wrote:
| I don't think he's a bad person. But when an
| artist/content creator/public persona has such
| fundamentally different values from me on an issue like
| this I can't enjoy the content anymore (I guess I can't
| "separate the art from the artist"). Having the opinion
| is fine with me but attending protests where women are
| being harassed for entering abortion clinics is
| problematic to me (this is a post I had seen but could
| not find again today).
|
| Someone pointed this out on mastodon a while back and it
| somehow made its way to me. I only mentioned there being
| thousands of posts to explain why I only skimmed the
| article to provide an example. I was trying to not spend
| my entire day on this.
|
| This was just suppose to be an "FYI" comment because
| knowing this affected me.
| ksynwa wrote:
| The last two paragraphs
| jrowley wrote:
| I had no idea about his staunch anti choice stance. Pretty
| gnarly stance to say abortion is unacceptable in all cases
| (including incest, rape, etc). This is good to know and
| changes my perspective on him. Thank you for sharing.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Good for him.
| joshu wrote:
| i was there. it's an awesome event. it's like maker faire but if
| it were run by feral youtubers. like half of the exhibits are
| some sort of cursed side quest. i got to drive the crazy oshcut
| simulator. i love it.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I was wondering to the degree it was different than the
| Maker Faire. (Took the daughters there for years until it shut
| down. Covid? I think it's back on bur I'm no longer in the Bay
| Area.)
|
| Maker Faire got crowded and a bit repetitious from year to
| year.
|
| Maybe you can characterize -- is Open Sauce has slightly less
| art, slightly more tech? That's my impression watching a few
| videos now.
| nrp wrote:
| I've exhibited at Maker Faire a couple of times and visited
| many times, and exhibited at Open Sauce twice.
|
| Early Maker Faire (in the Bay Area) was a mix of art
| booths/vehicles coming out of Burning Man storage and
| independent makers showing their projects and inventions.
| Then it rapidly commercialized with company booths taking
| most of the show space, and then it finally imploded
| financially. The recent resurrected version is less
| commercial, much smaller, and aimed more at younger children
| and their parents, but is overall not that far off from the
| Make origins.
|
| Open Sauce is very much Creators (content and otherwise) and
| independent makers, growing in scale every year. It works
| well, in part because the company/sponsor booths are no
| larger or flashier than the hacker/maker booths.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I've spoken with a few conference organizers about this--
| how do you please sponsors enough to make them want to come
| back the next year, but also make it so their booths /
| areas on the floor don't turn into boring "whatever-
| conference" spaces.
|
| It's a balance and so far Open Sauce seems to have done
| okay there; but a couple sponsored booths felt a bit more
| corporate/salesy and out of place this year.
|
| You could tell people would kind of give them a wide berth
| compared to walking around other areas, where people were
| more densely packed around all the booths.
| pininja wrote:
| The balance during the first two years felt amazing. I
| was so energized by the first days that I spent the
| second days revisiting to a ton of makers I'd met the
| first day to talk more. And I still didn't see
| everything.
|
| This year my friends and I felt it swayed a bit far to
| sponsored booths. There were fewer cool experiences (like
| the mini-golf) and I'd seen everything in one day. We
| wondered if the cool booths got denied in favor of ones
| that could pay more.
|
| We still had great conversations and met incredible
| people, but felt we had to work harder to find it.
|
| That said.. I think William's team has been in a deficit
| each year and he said in his OpenSauce+ video how he is
| trying to be more sustainable.. I still remember buying
| the $69.69 early early bird ticket on the way out of 2023
| for 2024 just to help them cover existing costs.
|
| I really hope they figure it out. It's such a great
| environment and has a great team behind it
| obscurette wrote:
| As a teacher I have become more skeptical about whole maker
| movement. Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate what has
| become possible. I couldn't even dream about most of it when I
| grew up in seventies in Soviet Union. I use a lot of open source
| hardware and the results maker movement myself as a hobbyist and
| as a teacher.
|
| But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't
| translate to engineering careers. Kids don't want to become
| engineers as result, they want to become content creators,
| tinkerers etc. Even rather good students with a lot of potential
| see all this engineering stuff more as a media career or a fun
| hobby.
|
| PS. I don't say the engineering hobby isn't cool and fun. I don't
| say that maker movement doesn't produce incredibly cool and deep
| stuff. I'm not even saying that it's the only reason why there is
| a shortage of engineers. But it's certainly contributing because
| I see it.
|
| I'm a member of local engineering community and I see a lot of
| stuff like the quality of civil engineering sinking and we're all
| paying for mistakes in it. I see a lot of local production
| closing only because all R&D engineers are 60+ and planning to
| retire.
| staindk wrote:
| If everything on show at open sauce were those stupid 3D
| printed dragons I'd agree with you. But the maker movement is
| massive and interesting and goes very very deep.
|
| You can self-learn as much about engineering as you'd learn at
| university. Most kids eventually pivot from wanting to be
| astronauts/influencers to something more realistic.
|
| IMO tinkering is an amazing hobby which will benefit you in
| whatever direction your career ends up going in.
| bl4ckneon wrote:
| I would argue that it does turn more people onto engineering
| paths and will result in more engineers. But it could just be a
| cool hobby! Does every person who is interested in cooking
| become a chef? Every person who is into sports become an
| athlete? Music a musician?
|
| With tech becoming more prevalent, people making more things
| and people repairing more things, I think it's an overall good
| thing. Also if they become content creators, then so what?
| djaychela wrote:
| > But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't
| translate to engineering careers.
|
| I think there has always been that though. When having a guitar
| was cool and people thought they'd be famous doing it. Of
| course 0.00001% actually managed it, but some craft out a
| career in music or related areas such as being studio engineers
| etc. (I did)
|
| And for some it shows that it is possible, that people like
| them can be enabled and make their own stuff.
|
| It might be that they're are organisations needed to bridge
| this new gap and get people into more formal engineering, but
| they'll also hopefully realise that people like them might work
| one day at top tier engineering companies.
| conorbergin wrote:
| I don't think the fact that you can make fairly serious
| mechatronic devices with pocket money can conceivably be a bad
| thing for engineering as a discipline. However this does mean
| there are a lot of people that own a 3d printer that will never
| be good engineers.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I think 98% of 3D printers go towards printing trinkets for
| organization and figurines.
|
| But I'm glad to be able to get into a 3D printer for an
| affordable price to do the other things. Probably wouldn't
| have happened without the mass(ish) market adoption.
| conorbergin wrote:
| Oh absolutely, I flatter myself to think I use them for
| "serious engineering", and I am well aware of my debt to
| Warhammer players who don't want to pay Games Workshop
| prices.
| rambambram wrote:
| > ... while kids like it a lot ...
|
| How is this a problem?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| the intertwining of entertainment or fun with learning is a
| problem because it teaches kids that if something isn't fun
| it isn't for them, the "infotainment science" genre that's
| very common these days I suspect is detrimental to people
| pursuing STEM the moment they encounter what those
| disciplines are like.
|
| Neil Postman used to make this point about TV politics and
| children's TV. Because TV as a medium must be show business,
| people were taught that if it isn't show business it isn't
| politics. When kids got spelling lessons on Sesame Street
| they weren't taught to learn languages but learning how to
| watch TV.
| fishbacon wrote:
| > Even rather good students with a lot of potential see all
| this engineering stuff more as a media career or a fun hobby.
|
| This seems positive, no?
|
| I love the idea that young people want to make stuff and tinker
| in their free time.
| proverbialbunny wrote:
| If they really like building stuff like this they can get a
| career that does it, like Embedded Engineer or Firmware
| Engineer type roles. And if it's just a hobby that's great too.
|
| I'm not sure about the media part, is it because of Youtubers?
| If so that sounds like wanting to become the modern version of
| a movie star. In that situation maybe encourage them to do a
| multimedia class at school and see if they like it.
| positron26 wrote:
| > they want to become content creators, tinkerers etc.
|
| Because there's no incentive alignment in the market to
| cooperate on larger works.
|
| I've been grinding away to solve this exact problem.
| https://prizeforge.com/vision (don't log in yet. deploying
| things and everything will be deleted)
| okayishdefaults wrote:
| I encourage people to learn to program especially if they
| aren't pursuing a software engineering career. Someone that
| knows a specific domain that can see it through the lens of an
| expert at another will understand their domain in a way many
| others cannot. They will be able to break down problems into a
| collection of manageable chunks. They will learn valuable
| lessons that show up when you begin to intimately think your
| way through specific problems.
|
| People may start out with the idea that they can be content
| creators. They'll have to go through several steps from
| planning, iteration, implementation, analyzing success or
| failure, etc.
|
| I wanted to make video games as a kid. Then it was being a pro
| gamer. And then it was physics. And then it was linguistics.
| And now I'm rounding out the end of a software engineering
| career. I didn't know how to program, and I wasn't particularly
| mathematically inclined. This led me down several paths all
| around the idea of generally being a better user of technology.
|
| One of the most seemingly random and yet greatest contributions
| to my path in life was playing EvE Online. I learned logistics,
| collaboration, tactics, strategy, spycraft, improvisation,
| mental fortitude, and even how to administrate LDAP servers. In
| no way was this a pursuit toward an engineering career.
|
| I'm also a lifelong musician, but there was a significant pause
| through my twenties due to lack of means. Now that I'm a
| programmer, I've been able to intuitively command my knowledge
| of music theory because it's systematic and documented
| thoroughly.
|
| Learning to play Counter Strike taught me how technique and
| approach is just as important as mechanical skill. I can
| specifically recall a tutorial regarding instantly headshotting
| someone as you round a corner without the need to flick your
| mouse. You simply anchor your crosshairs to the corner your
| pivoting around, place it at head height, and click when you
| see a head. This is an extremely valuable lesson in abstract.
|
| Learning to play Street Fighter competitively was informed by
| my experience with learning instruments and specifically key
| components of Jazz. Improvisation, syncopation, consistency,
| timing, and training the other person to expect one thing and
| immediately subvert that expectation all translated well.
|
| I am a champion-ranked Rocket League player. To me, my car is
| an instrument. I practice it like I practice any mechanical
| skill that I want to make second nature. Repetition, technique
| refinement and acquisition, control, and composition of all
| skills simultaneously are shared between these two things.
| Because of Street Fighter, I also approach it as a fighting
| game. Attacking your opponent's mental stack is key to high
| level success in the same way.
|
| David Sirlin's "Play to Win" taught me the value of removing
| artificial constraints. I seek to explore the bounds of any
| problem space to their fullest extent and use that knowledge to
| exploit opportunities without changing the space I'm in. This
| is a book about applying Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to Street
| Fighter and not directly abstract in the least.
|
| Factorio is a common programmer obsession. Because of this
| game, I have an intuitive mental model of algorithms and data
| structures, separation of concerns, fault tolerance, and how
| different parts of any system interact. It's not abstract math
| in my head- it's Factorio.
|
| My father started his career as a draftsman for oil companies,
| and his command over his hands has always inspired me. Reading
| "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" showed me that I could
| engage abstract thought at will. This would come up later when
| I read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I was able to draw
| connections between artistic pseudo science and an intellectual
| understanding of different modes of thought.
|
| I am a veteran. My job was being a Crypto Linguist. My
| experience in the military taught me the value of motivation,
| rigor, and discipline. I failed basic Spanish multiple times in
| high school and yet could dream in Korean with the right
| environment supporting me. These skills and lessons are key to
| becoming an expert at anything.
|
| I dismantle opponents in Rocket League by applying mental stack
| management from Street Fighter, tactical prowess from EvE,
| discipline and motivation from the military, acquisition of
| mechanical skill from learning instruments, and exploitation of
| existing mechanics from "Play to Win". Nearly everything I've
| learned has created a rich tapestry of thought that I pull
| from.
|
| I am now a successful, specialized software engineer with a
| long career. I stumbled into this, and I've never been able to
| succeed with formal higher education. I attended several high
| schools, often switching mid-semester. This destroyed my
| ability to get the ball rolling in mathematics. I could write a
| compiler before I truly understood what math was. Everything
| from my childhood acted as the foundation for where I am today-
| even if it was "pointlessly" meandering my way through trying
| to make a video game, a better MySpace page, process diagrams,
| drawing, setting up Linux, audio engineering, etc.
|
| People don't take a direct path to their dreams. They evolve
| and their former experiences inform their future goals,
| choices, and opportunities.
| preommr wrote:
| > But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't
| translate to engineering careers.
|
| Absolutely baffling comment.
|
| Like if kids started eating healthy and the complaint was 'yea,
| but they're not interested in growing up to be professional
| nutrionists'
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| But when instead they want to become broscience bloggers and
| influencers and sell healthy eating courses, that's a
| problem, to put it mildly.
| PieTime wrote:
| It's the end result of building a system of engagement over
| meaningful interaction. The more time spent watching ads
| disguised as content, the greater the profits.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Also don't get me started on parasocial relationships on
| twitch outcompeting real relationships.
| newsclues wrote:
| A lack of critical thinking skills is a fundamental
| problem, but that is a threat to government and
| corporations.
|
| People have lost the ability to distinguish signal from
| noise. We have been programmed to chase incorrect proxies
| for good!
| Etheryte wrote:
| Kids don't have to like the things you want them to like. They
| lead their own lives, so long as it's mostly fulfilling and
| happy, what's the problem? Don't be the figurative parent who
| tells their kids what job they should get.
| 127 wrote:
| Engineering career is not a goal, but a means. The goal is to
| build things that people use and you can make a living out of,
| on scale.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't see how you go from "it doesn't cause engineering
| careers" to "it's one of the _reasons_ there 's a shortage of
| engineers".
| ookblah wrote:
| that's not a maker problem, that's a social media modern day
| problem.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Parents don't usually send kids to those things with some grand
| career plan for them in mind, but to occupy the offspring with
| something that isn't cartoons. Finding what they want to do in
| life via such activities is just a bonus.
|
| Meanwhile the shortage of engineers is actually a shortage of
| everyone, as demographics shifted towards there being fewer
| children overall.
|
| Regarding solutions all eyes should now be on Japan, as they're
| a harbinger state - crises they have tend to repeat elsewhere -
| and they have had this problem for decades now.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've had a different experience. It probably has to do with my
| emotional makeup.
|
| I _really like_ engineering; especially the _delivery_ part.
| That 's where I give the results of my work to others, and they
| use it. It's been that way, since I was a kid.
|
| The _delivery_ part means there 's a fairly significant amount
| of "not fun" stuff, like Quality Assurance, Documentation, and
| Support.
|
| I don't especially _like_ that part, but the end goal has
| always made it worth it.
|
| It's been my experience that companies like to pay for the
| _delivery_ part. For some reason, delivery is important to
| them.
|
| I'm also "on the spectrum," so process and repetition have
| always been something I can dig. I find comfort in structure
| and Discipline, which, in my opinion, are required elements of
| "engineering," as opposed to "coding."
| throwaway13337 wrote:
| Maybe the kids are just optimizing for the currency that they
| think matters most: attention.
|
| They might even be right.
| bitwize wrote:
| > Kids don't want to become engineers as result, they want to
| become content creators, tinkerers etc. Even rather good
| students with a lot of potential see all this engineering stuff
| more as a media career or a fun hobby.
|
| Well, let's see, would you rather make your money slaving away
| in some corporation for absurdly low pay, or pointing a
| cellphone camera at yourself and attracting an audience of
| worshippers that could make you squillions with the right
| sponsorships?
|
| The problem isn't the maker movement; it's the broader problem
| that "influencer" is the new "rapper". Everybody thinks they
| can do it, and the younger generations are so much
| disproportionately sicker with main-character syndrome that
| they think they deserve the fame and riches of the best and
| luckiest, even though the Cool Career Pigeonhole Principle says
| they probably won't get it.
|
| I mean, ultimately, you gotta love the work itself, otherwise
| why bother. I love game development, but I know I'm never gonna
| be John Carmack, or even John Romero. I keep doing it for the
| satisfaction I get from doing the work. Maybe the maker
| community needs to emphasize that aspect more to counteract
| influenceritis. Or maybe we need to instill more of a sense of
| duty and responsibility in our young people, so that the
| smarter ones will step up and take on engineering jobs out of a
| sense of service to our civilization.
|
| With narcissism being the defining characteristic of society in
| the USA, going into the highest reaches of power here, I don't
| know that that will be possible for a while yet.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Is having more tinkerers or Bill Nye's really a bad thing?
|
| From what I've seen at maker and science fairs, these events
| often attract students who feel overlooked in schools that
| heavily prioritize sports. How many schools have pristine
| football fields, while the physics teacher is spending money
| out of their own pocket to build hands-on experiment kits, just
| to show students that physics is more than what's in a
| textbook? (That was the case for my dad)
|
| These fairs open kids eyes to a broader world. One that
| celebrates creativity, problem-solving, and scientific
| curiosity.
|
| Not every student needs to become an engineer. What matters is
| that they feel hopeful about the future and engaged in
| something positive, instead of turning to drugs or escapism.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| This is depressingly common, and sadly the casualties usually
| don't stop at STEM classes but include most other subjects
| too. I'm not going to say that sports aren't important in
| their own right, but it really bums me out that other classes
| are so often getting neglected (and in some cases shuttered)
| in their favor.
| gosub100 wrote:
| In my hometown the football team never got lavish treatment
| (but I am aware of that problem in the midwest/south
| particularly), but what upset me so much was seeing the
| salaries paid to the school superintendents. In a modest
| CoL area, a school superintendent does not need to be
| making $600k+. There should be a salary cap on jobs like
| that because the extra money does not add value.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > In a modest CoL area, a school superintendent does not
| need to be making $600k+. There should be a salary cap on
| jobs like that because the extra money does not add
| value.
|
| It's especially disgusting when you realize just how
| little teachers are paid. Where I live the superintendent
| makes ~$300k. Average teacher salary? $49k-$65k. This is
| a HCoL area too, you can't live on that.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| As someone with family who used to be a teacher, yes
| their low compensation is infuriating, especially when
| speaking about those who deeply care about their work and
| its impact on kids. Their workload is high to start out
| with and only becomes that much greater when they go out
| of their way to make sure their classes are well attended
| to and prospering.
| bigbuppo wrote:
| I've seen STEAM and SHTEAM tossed around as they add art
| and history to the mix. It's clear at this point that
| sports were a mistake.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Exactly, well said. Events like this -- and teachers like
| your dad! -- influence kids in ways that are even more
| important than career orientation. Not every student is going
| to become a scientist or engineer, but almost all of them
| will become taxpayers and voters.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Bill Nye was an aerospace mechanical engineer before he got
| into SciComm.
|
| I think it's important that there be a path from tinkering
| into engineering, if the individual desires it, perhaps in
| addition to "just go to college."
| drewbeck wrote:
| Nye also was a comedian right out of college [0], and was
| interested in doing a science television show ("content"
| lol) from pretty early on.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye#Comedy
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >escapism
|
| A couple of years ago I relized that games have become a
| religion for many young people. I have made legitimate
| critical comments about gaming that are resposponded to witb
| a viritol I only see matched by political flame wars. Its
| nearly a "taboo" subject for them to be critical of the game
| or industry.
| huem0n wrote:
| > it doesn't translate to engineering careers
|
| From one teacher to another, I'm sorry what?
|
| If teaching kids how build things doesn't encourage them to
| become engineers, what does?
|
| If you're taking about attention grabbing Youtuber-engineers, I
| think that is very different than the makerspace movement that
| gives people access to CNC machines/3D printers/welders without
| a person needing to personally own a CNC machine/3D
| printer/welder.
|
| All of the greatest engineers I know spent their childhood
| playing with legos, hot glue, solding irons, and hobby rocket
| kits.
| ori_b wrote:
| > _But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn
| 't translate to engineering careers._
|
| Gross.
|
| Maybe people should be able to enjoy doing things. Not every
| moment of child rearing needs to be dedicated to maximizing
| shareholder value.
|
| And maybe it would be good to extend that attitude into
| adulthood.
| Isamu wrote:
| Engineering is gross? Or the idea of promoting engineering is
| gross? Please explain.
|
| Engineering was my ticket for my transition from farm boy to
| lifelong steady employment with good pay and benefits.
|
| I chose the engineering path because I like to build things,
| and I've been fortunate enough to be able to do that as a
| career.
| nilamo wrote:
| The idea that a kid can't play without some tangible end
| goal of employment is what's gross. Not the activity, or
| the underlying discipline (engineering, in this case).
| dare944 wrote:
| Since such a sentiment was never expressed here, your
| comment is a non-sequitur.
| SR2Z wrote:
| A kid will eventually need a job and it's the opposite of
| gross for them to turn a childhood hobby into a career.
|
| Much more gross to end up doing something they don't like
| because they never got to try it out...
| ori_b wrote:
| And after being exposed, deciding they enjoy it, but
| would rather make a living elsewhere -- does that mean
| the hobby was a failure?
|
| There's nothing wrong with turning something into a
| career, but turning every action into career chasing is
| saddening. It's pretty gross to leave kids thinking they
| can't just enjoy something without juicing it for cash.
| pests wrote:
| Yes, and us adults also struggle with this. Look at
| hustle culture where every hobby is turned into some
| money making side gig. You like painting? Why isn't your
| art on Etsy? Like working out? Become a personal trainer.
| Make an app for yourself / friends? How you going to
| monetize or add ads? It's okay to enjoy hobbies without a
| profit seeking motive.
| SR2Z wrote:
| > And after being exposed, deciding they enjoy it, but
| would rather make a living elsewhere -- does that mean
| the hobby was a failure?
|
| If they try a hobby for a while and give up on it because
| they don't enjoy it enough, then yes. That seems like a
| reasonable definition for "failure."
|
| Nothing wrong with failing - in your career, hobbies,
| relationships, or whatever else. Sometimes EQ means
| recognizing that you should stop beating a dead horse.
| ori_b wrote:
| You don't enjoy anything that isn't a part of your career
| path? You can't imagine enjoying something without
| turning it into a revenue source?
| scienceed22 wrote:
| > Engineering is gross? Or the idea of promoting
| engineering is gross? Please explain.
|
| Huh? I can't think of a more disingenuous interpretation of
| GP's comment.
| ori_b wrote:
| I suppose you're right. And in a similar vein, the problem
| with toasting s'mores around a campfire is that while kids
| like it a lot, it doesn't necessarily translate to park
| ranger careers.
|
| We should really reform camping to optimize the career
| funnel.
| gosub100 wrote:
| they are saying the idea that any get-together should be a
| working formula mostly for preparing kids for work instead
| of being who they want to be, is gross. I mostly agree.
| jahsome wrote:
| Not op but I interpreted the gross part to be the idea
| engineering is the end all be all of careers and more
| importantly can't simply just be a creative outlet for some
| folks.
| neatze wrote:
| Or may be education should be more dynamic, engaging, and
| interactive, instead of having lowest paid teacher jobs, with
| overcrowded classes, heavenly focused on boring memorization
| (without clear purpose), and boring tests.
| fidotron wrote:
| Yeah, another side effect is management types are now allergic
| to things which look like maker projects, even if done with a
| level of professional engineering seriousness - they are unable
| to distinguish between the two, so now they dismiss both.
|
| This has been a factor in the slowdown of commercial IoT, as it
| is often dismissed as science fair stuff.
| 05 wrote:
| > it doesn't translate to engineering careers.
|
| 'Shortage' of US engineers is same as 'shortage' of developers
| - artificially engineered by off-shoring and importing foreign
| labor via H1B etc.
|
| There are jobs, there just aren't jobs that want to pay well..
| msgodel wrote:
| I don't think it's just pay. There are so many clueless
| administrators involved no one can actually communicate and
| collaborate with eachother.
|
| The independent maker thing is probably the solution to this.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| 'Independent maker' seems problematic. I assume you mean
| the collective maker movement?
| msgodel wrote:
| Independent as opposed to having a corporate or
| institutional job.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The maker world I'm familiar with is basically split into two
| divisions:
|
| There are the people who like building things, and the people
| who like making content.
|
| Some people check both boxes, but in practice the people who
| like building things the most aren't spending time grinding the
| YouTube game with clickbait thumbnails and constant self
| promotion.
|
| So like many domains, the part you see on YouTube isn't
| representative of the movement as a whole. It captures the
| people who like entertaining and making videos the most.
| lrvick wrote:
| I never payed attention to maker youtubers as a young adult.
|
| What changed everything for me was visiting a hackerspace and
| getting my own hands dirty making things. I got so distracted
| making things in the 15 years since that I have never have time
| to make content to share what I learned. Always more things to
| build or fix.
|
| Totally the opposite problem to what you describe!
|
| Maybe we should focus more on exposing people to making things
| in workshops, and communities, rather than content.
| skeaker wrote:
| Asinine complaint.
|
| 1. Not true in the slightest; you even contradict yourself.
| Engineering interests absolutely do grow from it like you said,
| and you will never get someone doing good work in an
| engineering career without a prior interest.
|
| 2. Life is not a career. Even just fostering an interest in
| something creative is invaluable on its own. Perceiving
| something as harmful because it isn't corporate enough for your
| tastes makes me extremely sad for you.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I don't think getting more kids to want an engineering career
| is going to improve civil engineering. Lots of people joined
| the software workforce and the result wasn't better software.
| clayhacks wrote:
| Is there stats to back this up? I imagine not every kid who
| watches these creators becomes an engineer, but do more become
| engineers than non watchers? Or less? I'd be willing to bet
| more do, even if it's still not a huge majority. I mean
| anecdotally I know a lot of engineer friends of mine who like
| these creators too. I'm a professional software engineer now
| after watching some of these people when I was younger and
| being involved in my high schools robotics team. I went to open
| sauce and saw a bunch of local robotics teams there too. Again
| maybe they won't all be engineers but I'm sure more will than
| the average
| consumer451 wrote:
| > NASA features many of Matthew's photos, but he told me he's
| also pushing for more sharing of the RAW image files
|
| These two shots of the moon and earth are so cool. This is such
| an interesting view of something that we are all familiar with,
| but will likely never see from this vantage point. I would love
| to be able to play with the RAW files, as some kind of deeper
| experience with the images.
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-iss071e609065/
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/gvynuzswiaatoq/
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Isn't maker movement secretely funded by Private equity?
| NoahZuniga wrote:
| Well, at least open sauce isn't
| consumer451 wrote:
| I'm bored, so I'll bite, why would it be? Can you share
| anything supporting this?
| pests wrote:
| A recent YT video talking about it.
|
| https://youtu.be/hJ-rRXWhElI?si=8h4h6lnbUpBDLiQp
| petesergeant wrote:
| Aren't all birds actually government surveillance drones?
| nixgeek wrote:
| Using the new U.S.-located 14A fabs coming online soon, all
| bumblebees will soon be government surveillance drones.
| jon-wood wrote:
| Only in the sense that a lot of YouTube channels are taking
| sponsorship from PE funded startups, and to be honest I just
| see that a slightly odd form of wealth redistribution.
| shlubbert wrote:
| Someone tell me where to sign up because I'd love to get some
| funding for a new 3D printer.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| Technically everything that isn't a public company (ie tradable
| on the stock market) is private equity although I think you're
| complaint is about private equity _rollups._
| pests wrote:
| I'm guessing this is in reference to a recent YT video about
| private equity buying up YouTube channels in recent years,
| mostly in the science and engineering spaces.
|
| Channels publicly acquired by PE:
|
| Task & Purpose, Donut Media, Veritasium, Simple History, Fern,
| Fireship, Economics Explained, Futurism, Astrum
|
| "Your favorite YouTube channel is (probably) owned by private
| equity."
|
| https://youtu.be/hJ-rRXWhElI?si=8h4h6lnbUpBDLiQp
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| Open Sauce sounds like such a cool event, I would totally go next
| year if it wasn't 12,000km away...
| Kudos wrote:
| Same, except it's the fear of being randomly detained for a
| month before being deported.
| VoidWhisperer wrote:
| Deported to the correct country, or a different one entirely?
| Sounds like playing a lottery from hell...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's a new game show called "Let's Make a Martyr".
| msgodel wrote:
| That's ok. You should start something in your country.
| avree wrote:
| Amazing how almost anything can be turned into U.S. politics.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| But how will they avoid the unfortunate end that Maker Faires
| faced last time around?
| stavros wrote:
| What was it?
| simonw wrote:
| Maker Faire went bankrupt in 2019:
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/10/maker-faire-now-make-
| commu...
|
| More on Wikipedia:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_Faire
|
| They're actually back now, but in a less expensive venue in
| Vallejo: https://bayarea.makerfaire.com/
|
| Next Vallejo event is 26-28 September 2025.
| stavros wrote:
| Ah, that's too bad. Thanks, I hadn't heard.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| TBH William Osman's been pretty open about this event not
| being profitable yet, though having the support on the
| YouTube/Sauceplus side, he hopes that will fill in the
| funding gap.
|
| Trade shows/conferences without a massive corporate
| sponsorship backing (e.g. like many trade shows today) are
| definitely risky, financially.
| viraptor wrote:
| They're working on it - you can get some backstory by watching
| William Osman 2 channel. They published a show this year
| https://www.sauceplus.com/channel/ScareTheCoyote/home then
| funded the rest mostly with tickets. I'm sure there will be a
| few side-projects helping here.
| bwb wrote:
| Huge thank you for making this post, I watched a few of your
| videos of the event and super super interesting. Great post :)
| Hikikomori wrote:
| William and a few other youtubers are behind open sauce
| https://youtube.com/@williamosman2
| ayewo wrote:
| Seems like the main channel is
| https://www.youtube.com/@williamosman
| Hikikomori wrote:
| He mostly posts on the second channel these days
| viknesh wrote:
| I went and enjoyed it a lot. The variety of the exhibitions was
| great (personally I loved the watercolor pen plotter) and the age
| of the exhibitors - both very young and old, was delightful.
| imbusy111 wrote:
| Just for balance, I went there, and it was pretty disappointing.
| I do love math and engineering, but it was very gimmicky,
| especially the panels. I tried striking up a few conversations,
| but people were really awkward and ran away. Also, generally as
| an event it was frustrating in many ways (for example, mobile
| internet is mostly down, and the agenda is not printed anywhere).
| But who wants to hear me complain.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| The panels were IMO the least interesting part (unless you
| really like one of the people on a particular panel I guess). I
| spent almost the entire time walking around to booths asking
| the people who made things about their creations. That was
| gold.
| unwind wrote:
| Meta: typo, it's Ken Shirriff not Sheriff. Although in my mind
| Ken is certainly the sheriff of IC exploration. :)
| olgs wrote:
| I was also there and especially enjoyed seeing the number of
| parents with kids. The badge making area is always full of kids,
| and adult parents or staff/volunteers guiding them in completing
| the Open Sauce badge.
|
| Getting to see and hold a 3D printed regenerative cooled liquid
| rocket engine was my personal highlight.
|
| BPS.space (Joe Barnard) released a nice YouTube Short that also
| highlighted some favorites.
| lucideer wrote:
| For anyone interested in a little context behind the
| organisational effort that goes into this event, William Osman
| (the genius brain behind Open Sauce) has put up 12 short videos
| documenting his attempts to promote the event in the week leading
| up to it. This is the first of those videos:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9qbjES787ZI
| imbusy111 wrote:
| Sending out a simple reminder email would have made more
| impact. I did not realize the event was happening until I
| looked at my personal calendar.
| huem0n wrote:
| Yeah something tells me scheduling coordination and planning
| aren't William Osman's strongest skills.
|
| The group really needs to hire a long term secretary that
| understands engineers and content creation.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The target audience is people who watch a lot of YouTube
| maker content.
|
| He's been advertising the conference constantly for months,
| not just a couple days before.
| toisanji wrote:
| is this makers faire 2.0? I didn't know about this, sad to have
| missed it.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I was there, and unlike many of the other commenters, I feel like
| it was just _ok_. Imagine maker faire but there happens to be a
| stage next door with YouTubers.
|
| The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do a
| very good job moving through questions, so very few people got to
| actually ask anything.
|
| I also felt very strange that the only place I saw kids was
| lining up to ask YouTubers questions during the panels. I
| couldn't help but think about how many kids want to be YouTubers
| when they grow up - it seems like YouTuber idolism was the main
| event and not any of the awesome booths by non-famous people.
| lightedman wrote:
| The real draw of OpenSauce is that it is really mostly a con
| for the creators, and that the public is invited to some
| capacity is just a side thing.
|
| The after party is where the real fun begins. Playing with
| dangerous high-energy devices? Hell yes.
| mft_ wrote:
| Having a science/tech/maker YouTuber as a role model is
| arguably better than, say, a fashion model, an actor, a
| populist podcaster, or a footballer, no?
| throwawayohio wrote:
| I do find it tiring that tech oriented people _still_ feel
| the need to denigrate people who are in the arts or athletes
| (tbh lumping them in with podcast grifters may be the
| greatest insult). Children can and should have a variety of
| role models.
|
| Especially when we have seen over and over again that some
| youtubers (not pointing at any at this even specifically)
| have shown themselves to be of quite low character.
| leptons wrote:
| There are plenty of pro sports icons that have low
| character. Good character is not a qualification to put a
| ball through a goal, hole, hoop or elsewhere, in pro sports
| or on youtube.
|
| I don't know any "tech oriented" people that put down
| anyone "in the arts", but most of them have no interest in
| sports. That doesn't mean they denigrate anyone in sports,
| but as for myself I do find humanity's fascination with
| putting balls into goals, holes, hoops and elsewhere a bit
| tiring, and I think it's a bit of a waste of humanity to
| put so much importance on putting balls into goals, holes,
| hoops or elsewhere, but we are all free to have our own
| opinions.
| herval wrote:
| You have YouTubers versions of all these, plus more (YouTube
| body builder, YouTube gamer, etc). The difference is people
| want to be _famous on YouTube_ , instead.
|
| Most YouTubers that kids use as role models are simply
| questionable entertainers and pranksters, so I'd say on
| average, it is much worse than having a footballer as a role
| model...
| bugsMarathon88 wrote:
| No, in fact it is arguably much worse.
| simonw wrote:
| Why?
| fragmede wrote:
| Because it means we no longer have a service based
| economy, but that we now live in a jester-based economy.
| Science isn't necessarily flashy and loud, it's a lot of
| hard, often thankless work. Long hours in a lab away from
| friends and family and even people.
|
| We can't all be the center of attention. society has a
| lot of other roles that need to be filled, but if
| everyone only wants to be the star, a lot of roles just
| won't happen. This is why UBI won't work. We should
| absolutely help poor people survive and live dignified
| lives, but UBI is a cop-out.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| In what way are models/actors/podcasters/footballers
| service but youtubers are not service?
| Ray20 wrote:
| >we no longer have a service based economy, but that we
| now live in a jester-based economy.
|
| In which way jester-services is worse than any other
| types of services?
|
| >Science isn't necessarily flashy and loud, it's a lot of
| hard, often thankless work.
|
| And in most cases it is more useless than the work of
| jesters
|
| >society has a lot of other roles that need to be filled,
| but if everyone only wants to be the star, a lot of roles
| just won't happen
|
| We do not live under communism, so "everyone only wants
| to be the star" does not imply that society is obliged to
| fulfill this desires. The market will fill these roles
| even if everyone wants to be the star.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| I would say no. I don't think one can adopt this stance
| without thinking less of people who pursue those activities.
| And I'd rather show kids humility, as opposed to superiority.
| msgodel wrote:
| There isn't a whole lot left in the US economy to aspire to. Do
| you think wanting to be a day trader is better? Should they try
| to get a professional engineering job and join the 50% of
| graduates who are unemployed a year after graduating?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Should they try to get a professional engineering job and
| join the 50% of graduates who are unemployed a year after
| graduating?
|
| The graduate unemployment rate is not that high. Did you
| perhaps see the viral Tweets TikToks or Reddit posts going
| around recently based on the article that got the decimal
| point wrong and overestimated it by an order of magnitude?
| penneyd wrote:
| I agree that it was a bit meh, maker faire with a small side of
| youtubers is an accurate description but overall I enjoyed it
| and there were definitely some cool booths. Saturday was also
| ridiculously busy making it hard to navigate and interact with
| folks, Sunday was much better in that regard.
| ghaff wrote:
| >The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do
| a very good job moving through questions, so very few people
| got to actually ask anything.
|
| Panels are a pretty mixed bag at conferences in general. So
| many panelists are reiterating talking points, they're
| repetitious a lot of the time, they're _too_ polite and in
| agreement, and audience questions are often in the vein of not
| so much a question but a comment. I _have_ seen good panels but
| I often avoid them as a rule.
| jahsome wrote:
| I love the concept of expecting Big Willy to be an effective
| panel moderator. At times the guy can barely moderate his own
| mind (which is why I adore him).
|
| This wasn't billed as a career fair. Why are so many comments
| criticizing as if it were?
|
| And on the subject of careers. What's inherently negative about
| kids wanting to be a YouTuber? For every kid chasing fame,
| there is probably an equal who just wants to share their
| passion with an audience.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I love the concept of expecting Big Willy to be an
| effective panel moderator. At times the guy can barely
| moderate his own mind (which is why I adore him).
|
| This encapsulates the disconnect with Open Sauce: It's
| pitched as a big Maker Fair crossed with VidCon, but in
| practice a lot of it revolves around William Osman and his
| entertainment style.
|
| If someone who adores William Osman and his content went to a
| panel like this they'd be entertained.
|
| If someone who went there expecting to hear from the makers
| and have questions answered, they'd be frustrated by the way
| the moderator became the centerpiece and the questions felt
| like fodder for the moderator to riff on.
|
| This is the disconnect that has turned off a lot of my maker
| friends from Open Sauce: It's a fun idea, but the actual
| conference leans toward being a William Osman centered show
| with YouTuber friends doing guest appearances. That's great
| for people who are into that and obviously a lot of people
| enjoy it, but the maker side of the conference feels like
| something of a sideshow at times
| jahsome wrote:
| I disagree. As I see it, it's pitched as a William Osman-
| inspired event. I wouldn't expect it to be a well oiled
| machine. In fact I'd expect it to be exactly how you framed
| it in the last paragraph.
|
| Personally, I can't help but feel like those wanting it to
| be something else are responsible for projecting those
| desires on to the event, and not the other way around.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > As I see it, it's pitched as a William Osman-inspired
| event. I wouldn't expect it to be a well oiled machine.
| In fact I'd expect it to be exactly how you framed it in
| the last paragraph.
|
| This all makes sense for people who discovered it and
| hear about it through William Osman.
|
| More broadly, it's not marketed as a William Osman
| centered event. Spend some time on their website and
| there's barely any mention of William Osman. Instead it's
| about education, growing communities, and building
| careers: https://opensauce.com/about/
|
| So for people in the in-group who rally around William
| Osman, the chaos all makes sense.
|
| For people who stumbled upon the conference as a new
| maker fare with cool exhibits, it's weird to show up and
| experience the vibe that orbits around William Osman and
| his friends.
|
| Not suggesting it's good or bad, but the disconnect is
| obvious throughout this thread. Even the Open Sauce
| website focuses on things like career building, but then
| people in this thread are being criticized for thinking
| the conference has anything to do with career building.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Can confirm, I've heard of OpenSauce a good few times and
| had no idea it was so Osman-centric. :D
| Aurornis wrote:
| To be fair, I don't think that was the original intent
|
| But when the creator of a conference has such a large
| following and primarily promotes through their YouTube
| channel, a lot of attendees will come to expect that
| person to play a large role in their experience.
|
| It's hard to break free of that.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I'm making observations, not suggestions.
|
| And one of those observations is that it was a very weird
| vibe to see dozens of 6 year olds line up excited to ask a
| question, and only 3 or 4 getting the opportunity.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do
| a very good job moving through questions, so very few people
| got to actually ask anything.
|
| William Osman's style is the anti Mark Rober: His channel is
| about winging it with projects that halfway work if they're
| lucky, while being kind of awkward and mocking everyone and
| himself. Moderating the panel and getting questions answered
| probably wasn't their goal. The goal was to be kind of
| entertaining in the style that their viewers are familiar with.
|
| Would be frustrating for someone to go into one of those panels
| expecting a traditional efficiently moderated panel.
|
| > I also felt very strange that the only place I saw kids was
| lining up to ask YouTubers questions during the panels. I
| couldn't help but think about how many kids want to be
| YouTubers when they grow up - it seems like YouTuber idolism
| was the main event and not any of the awesome booths by non-
| famous people.
|
| Open Sauce was supposed to be inspired by two other
| conferences: Maker Faire and Vidcon. Vidcon was primarily a
| YouTube and later TikTok conference. Open Sauce is basically
| VidCon's successor in California with some maker booths added
| in and an emphasis on maker channels. It's still heavily a
| YouTube conference though and the primary focus is YouTuber
| audiences, which is where they do much of their marketing.
|
| Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling
| points of the conference. I wouldn't read too much into the
| fact that you saw kids excited about their favorite YouTubers
| at a conference literally pitched on YouTube as a way for them
| to meet their favorite YouTubers.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > Moderating the panel and getting questions answered
| probably wasn't their goal.
|
| > Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling
| points of the conference.
|
| These statements seem at odds with each other. If meeting
| your favorite YouTubers is the main selling point, then IMO
| they did a pretty bad job with the fan service.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Let me put it this way: They put on a show that matches
| their style on YouTube and podcasts.
|
| The few fans who get to ask questions aren't the ones being
| served. They're entertaining the mass of people who came to
| see more of the same content on their YouTube channels,
| which is disordered chaos where they joke with each other,
| make fun of things, and joke around.
|
| It's a continuation of their style everywhere else, and
| it's what many of their fans came to see.
|
| If you were expecting a traditional panel style where each
| question-asker got to be the focus and drive the show for a
| minute, that's not their style.
|
| I'm not saying it's good or bad, it's just different from
| what you might expect from a more formal conference.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| Can't it be disordered, _interactive_ chaos? What 's the
| point of even showing up in person just to be in view-
| only mode?
| Aurornis wrote:
| Like I said, I'm saying it's good or bad or right or
| wrong.
|
| I do think you're not the target audience, though. A lot
| of my maker friends also skip Open Sauce because it's
| more about the YouTube personalities than about science
| and makers
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't think they're at odds. You can do lots of meeting
| but that happens outside the panels.
| milofeynman wrote:
| Is it a kid friendly event for a 8 year old who doesn't know
| any YouTubers? Like we he have fun seeing all the maker stuff?
| kieranl wrote:
| I took my 7 and 6 year old and they loved it! We spent all
| our time looking at projects and booths. They have no
| interest in the talks. With that said, there are not that
| many kids below highschool age that were in attendance. It is
| more geared to older kids/adults. But I do think there are
| lots of things to see there for kids. Probably the higher
| entrance fee reduces this a bit as well.
|
| With that said, you want to pay close attention to your small
| children, as some of the exhibits are not super kid safe. But
| that is part of the fun!
|
| There is a lot of variability in what you see as well. Some
| tables have incredible cutting edge projects, and other are
| exciting for a highschooler. Some are amazing
| highschool/middle school projects that the builders are
| really passionate about, but might not wow you technically.
|
| Every year I find an amazing creator there, where I bring in
| their work to our house for the family to build/play with.
| Last year we found https://www.trackstacker.net/ which has
| provided hours of fun over the last 12 months. And this year
| we found https://professorboots.com 3d printed construction
| equipment.
| bl_valance wrote:
| I've noticed this as well, past couple of years it has turned
| into more panel/ytuber focused, less about the actual projects
| showcased on the ground floor. Not to mention, it is pricing
| out many from attending.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Looks like the OG Maker Faire from 15-20 years ago.
| atum47 wrote:
| Back in the day I use to like watching people creating things in
| YouTube. After a while I notice a trend of people building stuff
| just for the views. I think that's one of the reasons Ben left
| Element 14, they did not care about inventions, they just wanted
| content.
|
| I feel like open sauce, as mentioned by others here, is just a
| place for YouTubers to gather an audience. With some exceptions,
| of course (I'm looking at you technology connections).
| lrvick wrote:
| I really wish Open Sauce made more effort to showcase Open Source
| solutions as the name clearly implies. So many things presented
| are proprietary, which makes them useless for significant
| community improvement and collaboration.
|
| Those pushing corpotech in an event meant to have a community
| vibe feels gross.
|
| Granted MakerFaire is the same these days.
|
| Are there any actual events showcasing exclusively open tech in
| the US?
| j-bos wrote:
| I attended for the first time this year after wanting to go since
| the first year. As someone who watches science techy engineering
| YouTubers, but hardly does anything with hardware, I had a great
| time. Even though I'm a fan of some of William Osman's work, I
| didn't really enjoy the panels. Relative to effort of attendance,
| they were kind of boring, something you could probably just watch
| as a YouTube recording.
|
| What I did enjoy alot were the exhibits. There's the spectacle of
| seeing all kinds of weird and interesting builds in person. But
| what's really, really enjoyable is that because the exhibits are
| done by average people who generally don't have a big public
| following; you can just ask them endless questions and they're
| more than happy to answer and give such a great insight into the
| build process, the work that is involved, the inspiration and the
| little details of all the things that they made. Granted, I will
| agree, many of the exhibitors are not socially dexterous, but
| because they're there, they're very willing to talk and explain
| things. Definitely worthwhile. I even got to use a soldering iron
| for the first time in a decade years.
| sedatk wrote:
| Despite having been organized on the former grounds of Maker
| Faire, the whole thing felt smaller. Exhibit halls were very
| poorly ventilated, and doors left open didn't help. Only the main
| conference hall was breezy enough. Panels were hard to follow due
| to bad acoustics of smaller halls.
|
| Retro related halls were mostly about NES/console Retro, not
| 8-bit in general.
|
| People were fantastic though. I liked seeing many different
| robots and cosplayers. I got to play many great games, looking
| forward to their release. Not many mindblowing stuff but, were I
| a kid, I would be blown away for sure. Robot fights were also
| exciting (maybe outdoors would be better for it though).
|
| I saw Ken Shirriff, and thought to myself "oh he must have left
| his assistant in his place". I'd never guess he'd be that young
| which impressed me even more given his phenomenal work. So, I
| missed my chance to thank him in person. Next time!
|
| Had good time in general. I hope to see it get better in upcoming
| years.
| kens wrote:
| > I saw Ken Shirriff... I'd never guess he'd be that young
|
| Thanks! But are you sure that was me? I haven't been young for
| a long while now :-) If the person you saw wasn't wearing a lab
| coat, then it was probably Mike Stewart or TubeTimeUS.
| sedatk wrote:
| It was you if your profile pic on Bluesky is current. I just
| hadn't zoomed to it before :)
| gooseus wrote:
| Seems cool but disappointingly has nothing to do with sauce, hot
| or otherwise.
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