I took the pic­ture above at Mak­er Faire today, at a dis­play by a group called Kinet­ic Steam Works, which uses coal-pow­ered steam engines to pow­er var­i­ous devices. This shot cap­tures the steam, cer­tain­ly, but also the kinet­ics (the mov­ing wheel, blurred with speed), and also work, a belt con­vey­ing ener­gy to machines. 

And more broad­ly, it’s a nice bit of synec­doche for Mak­er Faire in gen­er­al. Mak­er Faire calls itself the largest DIY fes­ti­val in the world, and I believe it, but it’s about more than just learn­ing to do it your­self. Mak­er Faire is a cel­e­bra­tion of an old ide­al — the idea that we should­n’t be mere con­sumers, that we should pro­duce the things we need, or at least be able to tin­ker with them, to fix them when they break, and to improve them when they fall short of our needs. 

Thus, a steam engine is turned to 21st cen­tu­ry tasks.

Thus, cre­ative minds design and man­u­fac­ture PCR machines that cost $500 a piece, enough to bring mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gy with­in reach of the home hob­by­ist. And hob­by­ists gath­er to cre­ate a col­lab­o­ra­tive work­space, where mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gy and biotech­nol­o­gy can be a week­end pur­suit, as com­put­ers were for Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Thus, cloth­ing design­ers gath­er with sewing neo­phytes to teach them to turn dis­card­ed t‑shirts into new fashion.

Thus, bicy­cles are used to pow­er the amps on a soundstage.

Thus, rock­etry enthu­si­asts and bal­loon pho­tog­ra­phy enthu­si­asts teach chil­dren to dream of the skies, and the 21st cen­tu­ry’s Jacques Cousteau is tempt­ed by the promis­es of a team design­ing a cheap, DIY robot­ic submarine. 

It’s an inspir­ing vision, in which the self-made tra­di­tion that built Amer­i­ca, and that built the tech­no­log­i­cal world, is revived, rein­vent­ed, and rein­ter­pret­ed. There’s tremen­dous pow­er in those gath­er­ings, tremen­dous work being done, but like the belt in the pic­ture above, we don’t know, and can’t know yet, where that work is being directed.

But no move­ment that can pro­duce a ride­able trilo­bite could pos­si­bly lead any­where bad.