Geek Gestalt

BOISE, Idaho--Imagine you're on a camping trip with your family, and your kids are bored. They want to watch a movie, but you forgot your laptop at home. Hopeless? Not at all.

You pull out your fifth-generation iPhone--yes, this is a story about future technology--power it up, aim it at the wall of the tent, and start projecting their favorite film there.

This is one of the many potential promises of a new microdisplay technology from Displaytech, a recently acquired division of Boise-based Micron. Known as FLCOS, or fast liquid crystal on silicon, the technology is designed to make it possible to project from a relatively small form factor device, and with high image quality and vibrant colors, just about anything you'd want, be it a Disney flick or a complex PowerPoint presentation.

Today, the technology is still in its prototype stage, and when I visited Micron here this week as part of Road Trip 2009, I was shown a demonstration in which things like YouTube movies or ESPN clips stored on an iPhone were projected onto a screen via a small device with a tiny 3M projection engine in it.

Even that was pretty cool, because the little device probably had about the same volume as a deck of cards, and the image quality--in a very bright room--was fairly good, particularly when it came to showing text-based slides. But the most exciting thing to me about the technology is the promise that by late 2010 or early 2011, there's a good chance that the thumbnail-size chip behind the microdisplay could begin to be embedded in commercially available smartphones, like the iPhone.

And that could mean that not only would it be possible to watch a movie anytime and anywhere, as can already be done on many small devices, but that it would no longer be a solo experience. Instead, using something like an iPhone, it would be possible to share a movie with a room full of people.

The idea behind the technology is that FLCOS microdisplays can mix color over time, blending reds, greens, and blues in very quick sequence, explained Eric Boles, Micron's director of marketing services. The human eye turns such color mixing into full color, meaning that FLCOS obviates any kind of color filtering.

Right now, the projection engine behind the technology is about an inch-and-a-half long and very power efficient, Boles said. Just 1.1 watts can produce 10 lumens.

For now, no mobile phone makers have gotten on board with Micron's microdisplay technology, in part because the chips may still be too expensive, and because smartphones may not yet have the power to allocate to something like FLCOS. But because the projection technology is on a chip, it is likely to follow the traditional silicon curves, Boles said, meaning that the chips will probably get smaller, faster and cheaper quickly.

Micron also faces an interesting marketing question: How to market the chips. The company doesn't plan on marketing FLCOS directly to consumers, but rather will work with consumer electronics companies to create the kinds of products they want. In the short term, Boles said, the most obvious market may well be businesspeople who could easily find themselves unable to resist a small device that would let them project a presentation on any surface any time they want.

Other exciting advances--before the microdisplay technology makes its way to the iPhone--could include adding wireless to the device so that it can retrieve content without having to be physically tethered to the content source.

And it's also exciting to imagine the possible roster of things that could be used as projection screens. Boles recalled a visit to a Mexican restaurant at some point recently where one of the prototype devices was used to project onto a tortilla.

There are, of course, other companies working on similar products, but the folks at Micron think they're onto a special approach to tiny projectors because the microdisplays are all-digital. And that means that Micron may be the only company able to embed such technology on a chip.

During my visit we discussed the idea that there is simply no end to the possible applications for the microdisplay technology. But as the Micron folks went through their presentation, it seemed that there was one constant: Each time they talked about a new potential use for it, my reaction was--and I suspect many people's would be--"When can I get that?"

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

SAN FRANCISCO--If you draw a straight line representing the evolution of video games from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Wii, one thing is clear: if you don't know your past, you can't know your future.

That was the central lesson of Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost's Friday talk at the Game Developers Conference here, "Learning from the Atari 2600." Essentially, Bogost argued, it's not always necessary to reinvent the wheel; sometimes, instead of being discarded as so much arcane, the discoveries of the past are best adapted for the future.

Bogost and MIT assistant professor Nick Monfort recently published Racing the Beam, a book about the iconic Atari VCS, popularly known as the 2600. So Bogost's talk Friday was clearly drawn from the research for that project. And while his fondness for the 1970s-era video game console was evident, the point he was really trying to make was that the seeds of successful games--especially those enjoyed by large groups of diverse people--have very little to do with the latest and greatest technology and much more to do with mechanics that make for enjoyable shared experiences.

For Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, a former carnival barker, the bloodlines that led to the 2600 were three things, Bogost argued: the fun-for-the-whole-family excitement of a midway, the shared competition of a game of darts played in a tavern, and the gather-around-the-TV sense of family time afforded by the den. At the same time, Bushnell wanted to repeat the success he'd had with coin-op arcade games like "Pong," but for the home.

What he was after was what Nintendo has also tried to build into its Wii: a feeling that people can have fun doing something together. That's why going to the movies is so much fun, or going out with friends to a bar: because it's something people can do together, in a social space, whether they're competing or not.

And it's about context, Bogost said. You can drink at home, but it's not as fun as doing it in a bar. Or you play pool in your house, but it's not the same thing as doing it with friends at the local tavern. And while no video game system can replicate being out in public, the right mix of game mechanics and tools can allow people to feel like they're in the middle of a social scene, even if they're in their living room.

"That's why Wii Bowling is the best game in the Wii Sports collection," Bogost said. "It really re-creates the experience and context" of real bowling.

"So what we see, I think in the (2600)," Bogost said, "is the adaptation of familiar subjects for familiar spaces."

He talked about the successes and failures of some of the games designed for the 2600, explaining that, for example, the original 2600 Pac-Man game didn't work because its designers didn't do a good job of adapting many of the atmospheric elements of the original arcade version. For example, it was missing the familiar music, as well as the animation of Pac-Man chomping and turning as he made his way around the maze.

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When it comes to whimsy, there's no doubt that the concept of a "bristlebot," a combination robot and toothbrush, is dripping with it.

But there's little whimsy going on right now over a controversy that has arisen with the appearance at the recent Toy Fair in New York of a book from Klutz publishing called "Invasion of the Bristlebots."

That's because in December 2007, the inventors at Evil Mad Scientist posted a how-to entry on the Make blog about something they called "BristleBots," a combination of a robot and a toothbrush:

The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun. The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version, as seen in Make Magazine (check the video) and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.

But as was discovered at the Toy Fair, a new book from Klutz and Scholastic publishing by author Pat Murphy, called "Invasion of the Bristlebots," is covering what seems to be exactly the same ground.

So far, it's unclear what the true origin of the bristlebot is.

In response to a request for comment on this story, Kyle Good, Scholastic vice president of corporate communications, wrote in an e-mail on Thursday that "Klutz is genuinely surprised by this reaction to our book. The development of 'Invasion of the Bristlebots' by the Klutz creative team dates back to at least early 2007 and was developed internally, like other Klutz products. In light of this misunderstanding, we're contacting the folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories in the interest of addressing the concerns that have been raised."

Afterwards, Scholastic put the same statement up on its public blog.

However, the folks at Evil Mad Scientist seem to be insisting that the bristlebot was their invention. As they wrote on their site Thursday, "We were never contacted by Klutz (or Scholastic), which we find surprising, being that we are the instigators of the current brush-based vibrobot movement and the coiners of the term bristlebot."

For now, this is all the information that is available. Stay tuned, however, as I plan to have a more in-depth story on this controversy on Monday morning.

Updated at 5:28 p.m. to include additional data and analyst perspective.

Though the retail economy suffered what appears to be one of the bleakest holiday seasons in recent memory, it looks as though the video games industry bucked that disastrous trend.

That's one conclusion that can be drawn from holiday Xbox 360 sales numbers released by Microsoft Monday, in which the company reported that its console business had the most successful holiday season in its history.

All told, Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for Xbox 360, said Microsoft boosted the Xbox's worldwide sales lead over Sony's PlayStation 3 to 8 million units, explaining that, based on internal data, the Xbox has now sold 28 million units globally, compared with the PS3's 20 million.

Microsoft said its holiday data came from internal sales numbers and weekly sales data available in some regions, like Europe, as well as past years in which December console sales are typically twice that of November, which in turn are typically twice that of October.

In November, Microsoft sold 836,000 Xboxes in the United States, suggesting that if Greenberg is right, the company moved about 1.67 million of the consoles in December.

No official North American video game sales numbers are available yet for December. They are expected to be released on January 15 by industry analyst the NPD Group.

To be sure, it can be confusing comparing North American sales numbers with global figures, especially when the numbers are simultaneously based on different kinds of sources.

But there does appear to be ample evidence that the video game industry is proving more resilient to the economic crisis, if not outright recession-proof, than other industries, and data provided by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo seem to be at the heart of it.

Nintendo, for example, sold 2.04 million Wiis in November, and while reports of shortages of the console seem less prevalent than in 2007, it is likely it did extremely well during the holidays. While nonscientific, of course, if Greenberg's formula is correct, Nintendo would have sold about 4 million Wiis in December.

For its part, Sony said recently that sales of the PlayStation 3 between January 1, 2008, and November 30, 2008, were up 60 percent from the same period a year earlier, though the company has not yet released any kind of figures for December.

"We've had a solid holiday season and have delivered consistent growth throughout this year. Two thousand eight was a pivotal year for PlayStation with the best software line up in the industry, a dramatic expansion of PlayStation Network including the launches of the video delivery service and the beta of the PlayStation Home," Ian Jackson, vice president of sales for Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in a statement. "Early internal data points to an increase of more than 130 percent of PS3 hardware sales for the holiday season--since Black Friday--and we're also seeing a growth of nearly 40 percent in total PS3 hardware sales for the calendar year. We remain confident this momentum will continue into the new year."

However, the PS3 was the only one of the three next-generation consoles to see its November 2008 sales drop from a year earlier. According to NPD, sales of the PS3 fell 18.8 percent, from 466,000 to 378,000. By comparison, Wii sales skyrocketed 108 percent, from 981,000 to 2.04 million and the Xbox grew 8.6 percent, from 770,000 to 836,000.

But Sony said that the November sales drop was an anomaly due to "an abnormally strong month due to a price cut (with) the introduction of the 40GB PS3."

"From a hardware perspective, I think the clear (holiday) winner is Nintendo," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, "and Microsoft has also benefited by cutting the (Xbox) price in September."

Sebastian added that Sony must address the challenges it faces this year, among them that the price of the PS3 is significantly higher than its competitors, as well as the fact that the console's internal Blu-ray drive has not driven the kind of sales Sony had hoped.

In the early days of the next-generation console wars, it was generally assumed that it would be a three-way race between the Xbox, the PS3 and the Wii. But because of the massive popularity of the Wii, Sony and Microsoft no longer compare their consoles' performances to that of Nintendo's.

The rationale seems to be that the Xbox and PS3 are completely different types of machines than the Wii, given the former's reliance on high-quality graphics and superior performance and the latter's focus on more casual games intended to appeal to a broad audience.

Whether that is semantics is a question neither Sony nor Microsoft seem eager to answer. In fact, both frequently make the point that Wii owners often also own either an Xbox or a PS3, if not both.

Of course, that is music to Nintendo's ears, and its growing confidence is borne out by the tremendous sales of the Wii since its launch in November 2006.

And to many, the most remarkable thing about the Wii's success is that it continues unabated.

According to Nintendo, the Wii has sold 15.4 million units since its launch, with 8.02 million of those consoles selling between January 1, 2008, and November 30, 2008. That means more than half of all Wiis bought in the U.S. were sold in 2008.

For the Xbox, the biggest strategic move to date has been the lowering of the console's entry-level offering to $199, making it the cheapest next-gen console, lower even than the $249 Wii. By comparison, the most inexpensive PS3 costs $399.

Interestingly, though, a recent study conducted by Nielsen Media Research, the clear winner among all consoles when measured by minutes played is neither the Wii, the Xbox 360 nor the PS3. In fact, the study concluded, the venerable PlayStation 2, still the most successful console of all time, continues to dominate players' time, even now.

All told, fully 30.2 percent of console minutes played were on the PS2, according to the study, more than twice the third-place Wii's 13.5 percent. The Xbox 360 came in second, with 18.3 percent, while, in fifth place, with 7.7 percent, the PS3 was embarrassed by the fourth-place finish of the original Xbox.

It's not surprising that the PS2 would come in first in such a study, given that there are more than 100 million of the consoles in players' hands.

But the runner-up finish by the Xbox was a victory of sorts for Microsoft, and a vindication of the efforts it has put into its Xbox Live service.

In fact, Greenberg said Monday that Xbox Live grew to 17 million members by the end of 2008, from 14 million at the end of October.

And the service--which offers members thousands of downloadable games, as well as movies and TV shows--also saw its revenue jump 84 percent, Greenberg said.

To Sebastian, the biggest advantages that Microsoft and Nintendo have over Sony is that the video gaming market has shown a clear preference for the more casual play that the Wii and Xbox Live offer.

"Sony has not been able to capture much of that market," Sebastian said.

Next week, NPD will release its December U.S. sales data, and it is certain that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will all issue press releases touting the successes of their respective platforms.

But asked why it decided to release its global lifetime sales numbers Monday, rather than wait until next week, Greenberg said, "All this data is based on our own sales data. This is (information) we have available, so we'd rather share this data now, rather than sitting on (it)."

Electronic Arts' much anticipated evolution game, Spore hits store shelves Sunday in North America, and for those that have been on the project since the beginning, it has been a long road from concept to completion.

The game's creator, Will Wright, who is famous for previous games like SimCity and The Sims said recently that the game has been seven years in the making, meaning the project was getting under way not long after The Sims launched and became the best-selling PC game of all time.

Wright has talked at length about how Spore's origins lie in the SETI project and other flights of his fancy.

"The original concept was sort of a toy galaxy you could fly around and explore," Wright told me last month. "As we thought about, it became apparent that evolution was a very important component. Some of the very first prototypes involved how you would move around and visualize the galaxy."

In the highly anticipated lead-up to the Spore's release from EA studio Maxis, in Emeryville, Calif., almost all the attention has been on the game itself or on its Creature Creator, which gives users an easy and sophisticated way to create complex beasts and which was made available in June as a free download.

But for many people, an equally exciting element has been the series of prototypes available for free download on the Spore Web site, each of which provides a look at the origins of a small piece of the larger game.

In fact, the prototypes were a crucial part of making Spore a reality. For example, since the procedural animation of the creatures in the game is one of its most-heralded elements, it's notable that before the system was ever built into the game, it started as a prototype.

"The earliest prototypes were making strange topology creatures and seeing if we could teach the computer to make them move plausibly, and later, show emotion and behavior," Wright said. "We had to find out whether the project was doable or not, or if some part of it wasn't doable, where we have to scale it back."

The first programmer on the Spore team was a Maxis veteran named Jason Shankel. Prior to joining Wright on his evolution project, he'd been working on a project known as SimMars, which was essentially a Mars terraforming game that was supported financially by NASA before the plug was finally pulled.

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TREASURE ISLAND, SAN FRANCISCO--When the co-host of a new TV show centered around conceiving of, designing, and testing prototypes of robots, gadgets, machines, and other things wears a T-shirt that says "It was on fire when I got here," you know you're in for a treat.

And that's the case with Terry Sandin, one of four hosts of Prototype This, a new Discovery Channel show that will debut its 13-episode first season on October 15, and which is being made here on this island in the shadow of San Francisco.

Sandin and co-hosts Zoz Brooks, Joe Grand, and Mike North are not your typical TV stars. Rather, these guys are seriously accomplished at their various specialties. The term "don't try this at home" certainly applies to their various experiments, at least if you don't have their impressive credentials.

Take North, for example. He's got a Ph.D. in material sciences, with a specialty in biomimetics. Add his ability to be the member of the team often tasked with solving problems no one else can to his rock star looks and engaging personality, and you've got a good start.

Or take Sandin. A veteran of 18 years in the film industry, and having worked on effects and other creations for movies like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Jurassic Park, and The Jackal, he now specializes as the show's machinist/fabricator/animatronics host. And how did he get the job? He told the casting agent that, "I enjoy short walks to make horror pictures at the beach" and sent along a picture of a "Tickle Me Elmo" doll in a pickle jar.

For his part, Brooks has a Ph.D. in robotics from MIT's famous Media Lab and wrote his thesis on coordinating human-robot communications. He's the team's software specialist and the one that forces everyone to listen to death metal.

And lastly, Joe Grand is the team's electrical engineer and self-styled "hardware hacker." A member of Make magazine's technical advisory board, he also runs his own product development and design firm, Grand Idea Studios.

It's clear that with Prototype This," Discovery Channel is hoping to tap into the same audience that flocks to MythBusters each week. And--no surprise--the same production company, Beyond Productions, makes both shows.

I got to spend most of Tuesday at Beyond Productions to witness the team and the show's crew, working on one of the forthcoming episodes, and it was an illuminating, and humorous few hours.

On Tuesday, the focus was on an episode in which the team was working on building two prototype devices that would be used by firefighters.

The first is what they were calling a "pyro pack," a custom molded backpack that a firefighter could wear on his or her back and that would hold a series of things that normally have to get lugged by hand: A dry-chem fire extinguisher, an oxygen tank, batteries, wire lights, some electronics, and more.

The second was a specialized robot designed to climb stairs carrying up to 500 pounds of the kind of gear that usually slows firefighters down and forces three of them to do what this robot could now allow one to do.

The specific design of the pyro pack was done by Scott Summit, an industrial designer Prototype This contracted to help them create it. And that's one of the things the show does each episode: look for the kinds of experts who can help them build the things they want to make.

"We do a lot of that," said North. "We're smart enough to know that we don't know everything."

On this day, the molded parts of the pyro pack had just arrived from the 3D printing firm in Carlsbad, Calif., that had been engaged to make them.

So, the team spent about 30 minutes filming--and re-filming and re-filming--a scene in which North and Sandin arrive through the door to one of the workshops carrying the parts with them and then showing them off to Brooks and Grand.

All told, they shoot the scene about six times, under the direction of supervising producer John Tessier, who makes sure they have it right and cover all the angles they might need.

At one point, both Grand and Brooks puts on a piece of the pack that fits on their arms--and which is designed to help a firefighter direct dry-chem from the extinguisher onto a fire without having to hold the extinguisher--and starts strutting around with it.

It looks like something one of the X-Men would wear, and Brooks picks right up on that.

"This already makes me feel like a freaking superhero," Brooks shouts out.

But Tessier wants him to say it again because he feels Brooks' "freaking" sounded too much like "friggin'."

"That's the way I talk," Brooks, who's from Australia, says.

Brooks said that he made his way onto the show directly from MIT after having done a little work for Discovery Channel there.

"I didn't know what to expect" after getting his Ph.D., Brooks said, "but (if) I'd had to predict, (being a TV host) would have been low on the list."

For his part, Sandin seemed like he was still getting used to be on the other side of the camera after so many years helping other people make movies, commercials, and TV shows.

"It's odd to go from being behind the camera for 17 years to in front of the camera," said Sandin. "It's a totally different experience. Now I get to do this, and this is my life."

Sandin explained that for someone like him, who has so many years of experience building things for other people's projects, "this is like playing in a toy store for me."

I asked Sandin where the ideas for show's episodes come from, and he said that it tends to be a very organic process, often resulting from the team musing on what it would be like to solve some problem they saw on the street.

And along the way, as the hosts work on creating the prototypes for the show, it often involves some of what Sandin calls "TV drama."

"(We) see if anybody is going to get hurt, which typically is me," Sandin joked. "'Oh, I needed that part of my thumb.' But little parts grow back."

It's not entirely clear, in watching the filming of the show how much is natural and how much is scripted.

That's especially true when you watch the hosts re-shooting something over and over, speaking the same lines each time. But much of what they're doing seems spur-of-the-moment.

At one point, for example, as they're filming the sequence where the hosts inspect the pyro pack, North asked Grand if he's still working on the pack's electronics.

Grand responded that, yes, he still was.

"I thought you just waved a magic wand and it was done," North joked.

"According to TV standards it does," Grand deadpanned, "but in the real world, someone has to design it."

As they're filming, Summit, the industrial designer, is also in the scene, and he's excited by the results of what came back from the company in Carlsbad that built the pyro pack parts.

He repeats his line again and again as well, trying to describe his excitement at seeing the parts for the first time.

"This is why you go into design in the first place," Summit finally says. "Something that really moves and articulates the way it should. This is the payback for all the hard work."

Later, Summit was talking about his experience being involved in the show.

"It's a wild ride," Summit told me. "The brainpower (of the four hosts), it's fun to be on a team where the other four guys on the team are so bright and focused."

He also explained that he had been teaching design at Carnegie-Mellon last year and that he had told his students to watch Prototype This when it finally airs.

"'This will be as valuable as anything you'll take in this class,'" he said he told the students.

Back in Sandin's workshop, he's been working hard on the stair-climbing robot. Over the previous weeks, the team had been trying to get the robot right, and had been failing. Finally, it seems, Sandin made it clear that he knew how to solve the problems and that they should just let him do it.

Sure enough, over the course of the day, I watched as Sandin, with the help of a couple of crew members, crafted the plates that made up the side of the robot's tracks, and put it all together.

Clearly, this was not something that he created in a day, but it does look like it came together awfully quick.

For much of the day, the production crew was talking about the possibility that the robot might be ready to once again tackle the stairs after several previous failures. But, being TV production, "controlled chaos," as someone put it, there was no promise that the robot would be ready.

But finally, as the day drew long and the sun began to sink lower and lower in the sky, dropping down over downtown San Francisco to the west, word came that they were ready to try again.

And sure, enough, with Sandin wielding a remote control system, the robot, with the new tread system he designed, did just what it was supposed to: it took on the stairs and conquered them. And it did so making it look effortless and quiet and with the strength to, at one point, carry North on its back.

As the gathered crew broke up, a feeling of excitement in the air, Summit came over to Sandin, a wide grin on his face, and clapped him on the back.

"That kicked ass," Summit said.

This feels very strange.

I'm riding down an alley in San Francisco, pedaling as you would on any bicycle. Each time I put my foot down, the bike presses on a little further. It's all very normal.

But then, with the flick of a switch on the bike's handlebars, it shoots forward with a strong, smooth, motorized thrust. Quickly, I've hit 20 miles an hour.

This isn't normal anymore.

This is Ultra Motor's A2B, a $2,500, zero-emissions scooter that just happens to also be an electric bike.

The A2B looks very much like a regular bicycle, except that it has some very heavy-duty looking components, and a wide center stem in which its lithium-ion battery is enclosed.

But in fact, the Ultra Motor folks surely don't want the A2B called a scooter because one of their chief marketing points is that it doesn't require any kind of license or special permit, as does a motorcycle or scooter. And that means that a new buyer could jump on it and get going without any kind of bureaucratic runaround.

The A2B is expected to be available, most likely from bicycle, scooter, and motorcycle dealerships, in September. At $2,500, it seems somewhat expensive, but Amy Robinson, Ultra Motor USA's vice president of marketing, points out that the company is positioning the A2B against high-end bicycles--which can easily run two grand--as well as against gas-powered commuter vehicles like cars, motorcycles, and mopeds.

I also told CEO Chris Deyo that I thought the bike might cost too much to appeal to a large number of buyers, but he said that if you compare the one-time price of the A2B to the ongoing costs of commuting by car, moped or motorcycle--given the cost of gas, insurance, maintenance, parking, and parking tickets--it's not so steep. "We found, in talking to folks, that (at) $2,500, it's a considered purchase, but it's of value to them," Deyo said.

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Talk about cross-promotion.

One of the closest things to Disney World's Orlando, Fla., home, is NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This is relevant because on Friday, it was announced that among the objects expected to be blasted into the sky with the planned Saturday launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is a figurine of Toy Story space ranger Buzz Lightyear.

Disney World, of course, is where the new Toy Story Mania ride has just opened.

The idea behind putting Buzz Lightyear aboard the Space Shuttle has to do with the "Toys in Space" initiative NASA and Disney are starting. This is an educational program designed to inspire children's interest in space and celestial discovery.

This is all also relevant to me because on June 10, I'll be hitting the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, and before I visit many of the South's most interesting destinations, I'll be stopping by both Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center.

At the theme park, I expect to visit and do a story on the Toy Story ride, and at the NASA facility I hope to be able to see the Space Shuttle land.

If the latter happens, however, I won't be seeing Buzz Lightyear, as the toy will have stayed behind on the space station.

Stay tuned to the Road Trip, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

SAN MATEO, Calif.--If the hour-long traffic jam leading into Maker Faire wasn't proof that the do-it-yourself festival being held here all weekend is bigger than ever, then maybe the huge crowds gathered around attraction after attraction was.

This is the third year that Maker Faire has packed the San Mateo Fairgrounds with the best and brightest of the burgeoning DIY community--mobile barcalougers, dueling Tesla coils, huge Burning Man art pieces, felt masterpieces, and on and on--and there can be little doubt the success of the previous two years' iterations led to a bigger crowd this time around.

In 2006, the first Maker Faire was a bit of an oddity, yet still attracted 20,000 people for the weekend. Last year, that number doubled and while I didn't hear any attendance figures for this year, I did overhear someone saying that ticket pre-sales had doubled over last year's total. All this is just the math behind the wall-to-wall people moving around the fairgrounds--most of them sporting ear-to-ear grins.

For me, and many others who have been to the previous Maker Faires, this weekend's version was more like a reunion than a showcase of new projects. To be sure, there was an endless supply of new makers on hand. How could there not be with hall after hall of creative people showing off the talents, skills, and wicked good humor that is the hallmark of events like this.

But, there was also a lot on display that had been at previous Maker Faires--and other events, too, like Burning Man, Yuri's Night, Coachella, and so forth. These days, a lot of big interactive art pieces are making the rounds of such festivals and events and some of the artists behind them, people like Michael Christian, Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito, Mark Perez, and others, are becoming known beyond the relatively insular communities they began in.

But, let's be honest: None of that matters when what you see when wandering around Maker Faire is excited kids, happy parents and young, attractive men and women dressed to the nines in period costumery.

And that is really the message that Maker Faire sends: That there are delights for everyone, whether you're a robotics fanatic, a Lego fan, a crafting devotee, a fire artist, a 9-year-old, or all of the above.

Those of us who live in the Bay Area might be tempted to think that this is the only place on Earth where you could find such an eclectic combination of people. Yet, as the very successful Maker Faire Austin last fall demonstrated, there are such folks in many places. What's really needed to bring them out of the woodwork is an event that champions their creativity, glee, and interest that people of all kinds get from hours and hours of playing around with the kinds of things that Maker Faire offers.

So, indeed, what does Maker Faire 2008 have to offer?

I could go on and on and on and on. But in the interest of your time and mine, I'll only go on and on.

One wonderful project was the Buscycle, a fully pedal-powered bus of sorts. You'd see it rolling by all over the fairgrounds, a happy collection of children and adults thrashing their feet, driving it forward. I had seen it sitting idly on Thursday when I visited the fairgrounds for Maker Day--a day for the makers to meet each other and get a bit of a taste for the event before they had to entertain the multitudes--and I'd wondered if it would be special. Question answered: Yes.

Another terrific--and very popular--attraction was the remote-control scale battleship naval wars that were being put on by members of the Western Warship Combat Club. In front of hundreds of people lined up four-deep or standing up on bleachers, these folks ran their little warships around a makeshift pool, firing BBs from ship to ship, trying to sink them. Little ships would get damaged, and then, showing no mercy, those running much bigger vessels would ram their craft into the smaller ones, all to the gasps and "Oohhhs" of the crowd.

There were hourly demonstrations of dueling Tesla coils that, with dimmed lights for full dramatic effect, would build up to a crescendo of commingled lightning bolts crackling away in front of an audience lucky enough to have wandered by at the right time.

In one outdoor area, the Neverwas Haul was attracting a long line of people wanting to climb inside a fully steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house. If that's a concept that boggles the mind, don't let it: A mobile Victorian house is exactly the kind of disconnect that Maker Faire is all about.

That's why, for example, Mark Perez's gigantic, Life-Size Mousetrap was a massive hit this weekend, with hundreds of people lining up to watch and see if a bowling ball could make it all the way around a long path of levels, pulleys, ramps, baskets, ladders, and the like. I never actually managed to see it running because the crowds were too deep. But when I've seen it in place previously, at Maker Faires here and in Austin, and at Burning Man, it's been a thrill to watch it in action.

What else? Well, no story could do the event full justice. But the sublime 2piR was well worth highlighting. This is a fire art piece in which a large circle of propane tanks connected to jets shoots out plumes of fire in time with the movements of people standing on a platform in the middle. The more you move, the more the jets of fire erupt on the perimeter. As the day grew cold Saturday, many people huddled on the outside of that perimeter, hoping that the players in the middle would cause the plumes to erupt near them and warm them up. Sadly for me and my friends, the propane fueling the jet nearest us was empty.

Earlier in the day, I had wandered through the various halls and came across a terrific exhibit of aerial kite photography. An artist named Ben Peoples explained that a small camera suspended from a harness under a kite can be controlled with precise movements and with some practice, can be used to take excellent photos from high above the ground. And indeed, there was a series of the photos on display, and you would never know from looking at them that they weren't taken by a professional with a camera in hand, maybe inside a helicopter or a plane.

Another project I liked was Michael Yates' "Camp Rehab Chevy," a collaborative effort to rebuild a very worn down 1948 Chevy truck and bring it back to life. As I found it, it was still pretty beat up and sad, but a group of people were tinkering around in the engine and inside the cab, and I had no doubt that by weekend's end, this might well be a functional truck.

The point of all this is that Maker Faire is a place where there is almost literally no end of wondrous attractions and terrific little finds. Tucked away in a corner of a hall, you might find some little delight that you'd never think you'd find: someone with a series of LEDs being spun around in seemingly random circles, making gorgeous patterns in the air, like Carl Pisaturo's "Rotating Amusement Device," or Tim Giugni's "Shadow Dome," a terrific exhibit which projected a shadow castle on the wall of a canvas room with a spotlight inside.

It's not likely that if you're reading this story that you'd be able to hop in the car and make it to the fairgrounds before Maker Faire closes Sunday--at 6 p.m.--but if what you're reading here piques your interest and you've never been before, mark the first weekend of May 2009 on your calendar and make a point of coming down next year. You will not be disappointed.