weirdness · Sep 23, 2026 · DAILY TRANSMISSION
A Carrot Piano Is Moving Into an Old Naval Shipyard
Maker Faire Bay Area turns 20 at Mare Island, where warship history meets potato drums, retro 3-D games, and machines built because somebody had an idea.
The carrots have arrived for duty
Picture a carrot wired up as a piano key. Nearby, potatoes become drums. A robot balances itself through Bluetooth tuning, while old 3-D games wait for fresh hands.
That strange little parade is scheduled for Maker Faire Bay Area, September 25–27, 2026. The event will take over Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, for the 20th anniversary of the first Maker Faire.
The first Bay Area Faire happened on April 22, 2006, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. It drew roughly 200 makers and about 15,000 attendees. Twenty years later, the party has bigger walls, heavier history, and apparently vegetables with musical ambitions.
This place used to build serious stuff
Mare Island became the first U.S. naval base on the West Coast in 1854. It built the West Coast’s first U.S. warship and first dry dock, a basin where ships can be repaired out of water.
During World War II, the yard produced submarines, destroyer escorts, landing craft, and other vessels. It also repaired ships damaged in battle. This was a place of huge pipes, huge machines, and stakes much larger than a tilt-controlled claw machine.
The shipyard closed in 1996 and later transferred to Vallejo for reuse and redevelopment. For the fourth straight year, Maker Faire is using the site for another kind of machine-making: public, homemade, and cheerfully unnecessary.
The Foundry gets wonderfully unhinged
The 2026 Faire is expanding into the back half of the Foundry. Its Foundry Stage is moving there, too. That sounds like a practical floor-plan detail, until you remember the floor plan includes Tesla coils and a cupcake car.
The official program lists humanoid robots, drones, amateur rockets, retro computing, forging, lathes, fiber art, laser cutting, and light installations. There will also be Rube Goldberg machines: elaborate setups that perform a simple task through a ridiculous chain of actions.
Microchip Technology says its Coal Shed 3 installation will bring the carrot piano, potato drums, children’s musical synthesizers, retro games, and a self-balancing robot. It will also have a robotic claw machine controlled by tilting. Somewhere, an ordinary claw machine is feeling deeply underdressed.
Forty years of fake depth, real buttons
Retro Roadshow is bringing “Into The Third Dimension!,” a hands-on history of 3-D visuals and gameplay. The exhibit spans four decades of classic consoles and vintage computers, and runs all three days.
That makes the anniversary feel less like a nostalgia party than a messy family reunion for old and new ideas. Classic game hardware sits beside robots and Arduino projects, which are electronics builds based on a popular programmable board.
Maker Faire is also still inviting makers, builders, hackers, craftspeople, artisans, presenters, performers, and volunteer stewards. That invitation is the whole flavor of the thing. You are not meant to stand behind a velvet rope and admire innovation like a rare bird.
A shipyard becomes a giant “what if?”
Mare Island once helped project military power across the Pacific. For one weekend, it becomes a place where people show off odd projects, explain their wiring, and let strangers play with the results.
Some of those projects may be technically impressive. Some may be beautiful. Some may exist because somebody looked at a carrot and thought, “Yeah, that can probably make a chord.”
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The carrots have arrived for duty
Picture a carrot wired up as a piano key. Nearby, potatoes become drums. A robot balances itself through Bluetooth tuning, while old 3-D games wait for fresh hands.
That strange little parade is scheduled for Maker Faire Bay Area, September 25–27, 2026. The event will take over Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, for the 20th anniversary of the first Maker Faire.
The first Bay Area Faire happened on April 22, 2006, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. It drew roughly 200 makers and about 15,000 attendees. Twenty years later, the party has bigger walls, heavier history, and apparently vegetables with musical ambitions.
SOURCES FROM THIS TRANSMISSION
Maker Faire | Maker Faire Bay Area - Maker Faire ↗Mare Island Naval Shipyard (U.S. National Park Service) ↗Maker Faire | FAQ - Maker Faire ↗Two Weeks Until Maker Faire Bay Area ↗Maker Faire | Microchip Technology ↗Events — The Retro Roadshow ↗Make: Live - Maker Faire Turns 20! ↗