Geek Gestalt

Win a Maker Faire package including four tickets and a T-shirt by submitting your best 150-word idea on how to use do-it-yourself to remake America.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

In just 16 days, Maker Faire, the annual do-it-yourself nirvana, will be returning to San Mateo, Calif., and you could be there courtesy of CNET News.

Last month, I posted an entry here offering 20 free Maker Faire passes for the best 150-word submissions on how you would use DIY to remake America. Unfortunately, I didn't receive enough submissions to make it a particularly competitive contest. So we're changing the game a little bit.

Instead of offering 20 people one free pass to the May 30 and 31 event, I'm going to offer five packages of four tickets plus a Maker Faire T-shirt. And if you are one of the people who sends in one of the five most impressive submissions, one of those packages will be yours.

The challenge remains the same: Give me 150 words on how you'd remake America the DIY way. If you've already sent me a submission, don't worry, I still have it.

For everyone else, please send me your submissions by the end of the business day on Monday, May 18.

If you're within striking distance of the Bay Area and you've never been to Maker Faire--I've been to all three in San Mateo, plus the 2007 edition in Austin, Texas, and I can tell you that it's nothing short of a blast--or even if you have, you should definitely be there. And you could either pay $30 in advance for a weekend pass (or $50 at the gate) or you could get in for free.

It's up to you.

Well, not entirely. The actual decisions will be made by my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone. But if you've got a great idea, I'll do my best to nudge him in your direction.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off 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 looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. 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.

The Neverwas Haul, a mobile, steam-powered Victorian house, on display at Maker Faire 2008. You could join the crowd at the 2009 edition of the DIY celebration in San Mateo, Calif.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

During the past few years, the world has rediscovered the joys of do-it-yourself (or DIY) projects, and everywhere you look these days, you can see people building things themselves rather than buying them from others.

A big part of this revolution has been Make magazine, and its Maker Faires, festivals--which celebrate the DIY spirit in all its manifestations--which take place each year in San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

To date, I am not really a maker myself, though that's something I regret and am ever exhorting myself to change. But I have been to four Maker Faires, and I've seen some of the wonderful things that people show off there: Steam-powered mobile Victorian houses, incredibly soft Flying Spaghetti Monsters made from felt, wooden iPods, watermelon-launching trebuchets and much, much more.

Well, Maker Faire is coming back to San Mateo on May 30 and 31, and you could be there.

The event's organizers have given me 20 passes to award CNET News readers. And all you have to do to win one is tell me, in 150 words or less, how you would use DIY to remake America (the event's theme).

It's a broad topic, I admit, and I'm sure there are an infinite number of ideas that could win. But in order to pick the best 20, I'm going to turn to my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

So, send your 150-words-max ideas to me at daniel(dot)terdiman-*at*-cnet(dot)com by May 8 (please include the words "Maker Faire contest" in your e-mail subject line, as well as your full name in your e-mail), and maybe I'll be seeing you at Maker Faire.

It appears that an agreement has been reached between Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories and Klutz, the publisher of a book called the 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' to give credit for the creation of the concept of a bristlebot to the original makers.

(Credit: Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com)

A kerfuffle that exploded online in the past few days over who created the concept of a "bristlebot," a small robot mashed up with a toothbrush, looks like it has a happy ending after an agreement between a New York publisher and two Silicon Valley "makers."

The controversy arose when a forthcoming book called "The Invasion of the Bristlebots" was discovered at the recent New York Toy Fair, raising the hackles of many who were deeply familiar with the concept of bristlebots, which had first been spread in late 2007 by the Silicon Valley makers, Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay, otherwise known as Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

In a post on how to create a bristlebot on the Make magazine blog in December, 2007, Edman and Oskay wrote:

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...and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.

Since that post, Edman said, bristlebots have become one of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories' most popular creations, one that has spurred people all over the world to work on their own bristlebot projects, a development that Edman said was "fantastic." The original post also linked to a video (see below) on making one of the little robots that has since been viewed on YouTube more than 2.1 million times.

Given that, and the fact that the book from Klutz publishers (a division of Scholastic) had neglected to offer any credit to Edman or Oskay, or any acknowledgment that someone else had previously worked on bristlebots, upset a lot of people.

In a post on the Make magazine blog Thursday, senior editor Phil Torrone called the Klutz book project, which was authored by Pat Murphy, a "sad day for makers." And Edman and Oskay wrote on their own site: "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 its part, Scholastic initially took a wait-and-see attitude. Kyle Good, vice president of corporate communications, told CNET News in an e-mail: "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."

On Friday afternoon, the two sides talked, and according to Edman, it appears that a resolution was reached.

The book 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' by Pat Murphy, will be published by Klutz and Scholastic in April. While the publisher says the book was already in the works prior to the December, 2007 blog posts in which Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories first wrote about bristlebots, it will give credit to the original makers.

(Credit: Scholastic/Klutz)

"I think they want to do the right thing," Edman told CNET News. "It sounds like they want to give us acknowledgment and work with us to make things right."

Edman said that there were still details to be worked out with Klutz, and that she couldn't go into specifics of the agreement, but she characterized the conversation as a "good call."

In a statement issued by Scholastic late Friday, Murphy, the book's author, also said that the discussion with Edman had been "good" and productive.

"We spoke about our shared commitment to making science and technology accessible to children," Murphy's statement began. "We began a discussion of ways that Klutz could acknowledge the exceptional work that Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories had done in bristlebot research--starting with this message and continuing with acknowledgment in the next printing of the book and on the Klutz Web site."

Murphy also said that her bristlebots project did begin inside Klutz.

"At Klutz, the toothbrush robot evolved from the work of another editor and content developer on vibrobots....Sometime in early 2007, his efforts to shrink a vibrobot to a size that would fit on a book led him to strap a pager motor on a well-worn toothbrush. When he left Klutz, I worked on a tight deadline to refine his work and develop ways that kids ages eight and up could play with these Bots. Unfortunately, when working on a tight deadline, I tend to focus inward, rather than looking outward for others who might be able to help. And publishers, unlike the maker community--or the education community, where I spent many years--tend to keep their research under wraps until we're ready to publish."

Still, many in the maker community will find it improbable that bristlebots were created by anyone except Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Yet, even if true, Edman and Oskay didn't have much, if any, of a legal complaint against the publisher, said Michael Barclay, an intellectual property attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

"Concepts are kind of fuzzy things," said Barclay, who was speaking generally and not about the specifics of the bristlebots controversy. "The generic concept of putting a robot together with a toothbrush would be pretty hard to protect....It's very hard to protect an idea."

But to Edman, the dispute was never about the law.

"I'm not at this point concerned with any legal situation," Edman said. "I'm much more concerned with the maker community, and that their rights are protected to continue to do projects like this and not feel that if they put a project out there that somebody's going to come along and use that project for financial gain without contacting the maker. So, is it a legal right? It's more a community ethos, the morals of the community and the community behavior that I'm interested in."

To people like Torrone, who is a passionate advocate for the maker community, the apparent resolution between Klutz and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories seems like a good thing.

"This is great news for makers," Torrone said. "It means there are huge companies interested in what makers create. I'm sure (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories) will show how traditional business can work with the maker community to the benefit of both."

Torrone added that he, like Edman, hadn't been looking at the dispute from a legal perspective. Rather, he too had been concerned that the situation might mean that makers can see their work appropriated by others without proper credit, something that might shut off the inspiration of future creators.

"My concern...was about what type of company Scholastic and Klutz wants to be, what world they want kids to grow up in," Torrone said. "They can credit makers and work with them or they can choose to hijack unique inventions without crediting makers. I'm pleased to see Scholastic and Klutz re-evaluated their position once they rediscovered the overwhelming clear-cut evidence that bristlebots came from (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)."

For Edman, the agreement with Klutz is an example of "an opportunity for a company like Klutz to collaborate with a community...and develop ideas with them, rather than the other way around. If we can work in concert, it will be much more successful."

Following on the success of their hit do-it-yourself magazine, the people behind Make will now bring their efforts to public television.

On Saturday, Make: Television will debut, a partnership between the magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television. All episodes will also be available for DRM-free download in HD, on YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, and Blip.tv.

"Make: is the DIY series for a new generation," a release about the new show began. "It celebrates 'makers'--the inventors, artists, geeks, and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The series encourages everyone to invent, revent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode inspires millions to think, create and, well, make."

The show will focus on the same kind of activities and people that have filled the pages of Make magazine. Among those featured in the first episode, for example, are Cyclecide, a group that travels the country putting on a bicycle rodeo; the maker of a cat-feeder built from an old VCR; and the man behind the "laser harp," a musical instrument played by strumming laser strings.

For some time, Make has been producing video content that has been available online. But now, for the first time, it is creating all-new content that is intended for television.

Make is also behind Maker Faire, a two-day DIY festival that takes place each year in both San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

The launch of the show comes at a difficult time for media, what with layoffs across the industry and a weakening environment for advertising. But Make senior editor Philip Torrone said that things are going well for the magazine and that it is doing as well as it ever has.

One explanation for that would seem to be that as the economy falters and people struggle to make ends meet, Make helps them learn to do things on their own, without spending a lot on pre-produced goods. And, because it fosters a do-it-yourself ethos, the magazine--and its related media--is attractive to those interested in becoming more self-reliant.

Whether the TV series will be a success is unknown. But the fact that Twin Cities Public Television and American Public Television have decided that now is a good time to launch the show is a sign that people, there at least, believe that the time is right to promote DIY to a larger audience.

One of my favorite people in the world of tech culture has always been Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

Over the years, I've done a number of stories about his various exploits, including Roomba Frogger at South by Southwest 2006, his laser-etching business, his jamming of TVs at a hotel in Austin, Texas, and his work in helping organize Maker Faires. Beyond that, I've always enjoyed talking with him, as he's a world traveler, a top-notch intellect, and a world-class culture jammer. He's just my kind of guy.

'Make' magazine editor Phil Torrone playing with a TV-B-Gone at a hotel in Austin, Texas in October, 2006.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And there's certainly one thing about Torrone that is evidenced in the things he does for fun and for work: he is not shy about pushing social and cultural boundaries. In fact, based on my personal observations of him, he kind of revels in doing so.

So when I saw a Boing Boing post on Tuesday reporting that Torrone was seen at this week's ETech conference in San Diego with a carry-on bag that has a fully formed imprint of a handgun on it, I was both shocked and not at all surprised.

What I would have given, I thought, to have seen him take that bag through airport security; to see what I'm sure was his straight-faced gaze as Transportation Security Administration personnel encountered the bag.

At the ETech conference in San Diego, Torrone was spotted carrying this bag, a model from Dutch firm Vlieger & Vandam

(Credit: David Pescovitz/Boing Boing.net)

As Boing Boing blogger David Pescovitz put it in his entry, "Fortunately, (Torrone) made it through security with enough time to catch his flight."

I bet he did.

To be fair, Torrone's bag is a production model from the Dutch firm Vlieger & Vandam, and I'm sure he's not the only person traveling around with one. In fact, the firm makes the bag in three colors and also has one with an embossed knife.

But holy cow! What chutzpah. Especially because we all know that airport security don't take things that make them think of weapons lightly. Witness what happened to MIT student Star Simpson when she wore a shirt with some home-made electronics built-in to the Boston airport last year.

And I'm not at all surprised. If you recall, during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the gadget blog Gizmodo caused a huge uproar when it ran a prank turning off TVs at the show, including those being used for a major Motorola presentation.

Gizmodo took a massive amount of flak for the prank--though its profile was also raised immeasurably--but one thing was lost in the mix.

As Gizmodo itself reported in its initial story on the prank, "when Make offered us some TV-B-Gone clickers to bring to the show, we pretty much couldn't help ourselves...Thanks to Phil Torrone for the gear."

When I read that, I had to smile, especially after the firestorm of controversy that erupted afterward, not one single bit of which was targeted at Torrone. But I knew that somewhere, he was laughing his behind off at what he had wrought.

The reality is, Torrone is one of those people worth watching, no matter where he goes because he's always up to something interesting.

I'm sure there are those who think his brand of humor and sense of boundaries is anti-social and even dangerous. Having been there for the Roomba Frogger episode and having read the many, many comments readers left after I wrote about it, I actually know that for a fact.

But at the same time, I think that society's conventions need a little tweaking from time to time, and it takes people with a little chutzpah to do so, people who aren't afraid of the kind of response their actions will engender. And I also know that Torrone would never actually put anyone in danger.

So all I can say is, if you happen to be heading to Austin later this week for this year's South by Southwest conference--where I know Torrone will be--keep an eye on him. You never know what might happen.

AUSTIN, TEXAS--I'm sitting in the lobby of the Radisson hotel downtown with a bunch of the folks putting on Maker Faire.

One of them is Make magazine editor Phil Torrone, who, among other crazy ventures, was the co-genius behind Roomba Frogger, when he and fellow hacker Limor Fried modified a Roomba vacuum cleaner and wirelessly directed it to run back and forth across an Austin street like the iconic classic video game during South by Southwest 2006.

This morning, however, Torrone is tired, as it's only 8 a.m. But he's got a goal, and it's not one that would be generally accepted by society at large.

'Make' magazine editor Phil Torrone holding the TV-B-Gone, an open-source kit for turning off televisions

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And that is to show off his brand new TV-B-Gone kit, an open-source, build-it-yourself device for turning off almost any television created by Fried in conjunction with Mitch Altman, the designer of the original TV-B-Gone.

And while Altman sold his device, people couldn't build it themselves. Now, anyone can in about 20 minutes with some rudimentary soldering skills, Torrone tells me. This is much more in the spirit of Maker Faire and general DIY culture.

So, we're sitting in the lobby and Torrone shows me the device, which is small, with several LEDs and some circuitry. I would never have known what it is.

A big flat-screen TV on the wall is showing CNN and Torrone is bemoaning the fact that television tends to suck people's attention away from conversation. So he looks over at the set, surreptitiously pushes the button on his TV-B-Gone, and it flickers off.

We smile, because it's nice that it's off, but a minute later, someone walks over and turns it on again.

That's no good, clearly, and so Torrone clicks it off again using his tool.

Torrone turning off the television in the lobby of the Austin Radisson hotel using his TV-B-Gone kit. Someone turned it on a minute later, so Torrone turned it back off.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

"I feel really bad about this," Torrone says, "totally bad about that. I'm not a good person."

I don't believe him.