San Francisco Exploratorium

August 7, 2025August 9, 2025 Lutin

We went for a visit to the San Francisco Exploratorium in the Embarcadero pier 15. The Exploatorium teach science, technology, art and math (STEAM) like no place else on earth. Most of the exhibits are one of a kind creations straight from their prototyping workshop designed to engage audiences of all ages. The Exploratorium has over 600 exhibits that visitors can interact with.

Situated in the middle of San Francisco’s piers, it is a perfect walking destinations with lots of sights, food and more to explore!

If you are not up for a walk, there is also a MUNI stop right outside the entrance.

There is a lot to see, if you are only going once make sure to prioritize which exhibits you must see.

Learn about human perception by taking a drink from this unique drinking fountain that is shaped like a toilet.

This is a cloud chamber, a machine that allows you to see particles. The cloud chamber was invented by a physicist named Charles Thomson Rees Wilson in 1911. The cloud chamber is filled with the supersaturated vapor of water or vinegar.

You can even look inside the prototyping workshop where engineers can build prototypes for complicated designs.

This device counts when you turn the first gear using more and more advanced technology. It goes from the ones place counted by a spinning gear, all the way to a computer.

This is a model of the mars rover Perseverance. Its jobs is to look for evidence of ancient life on mars and pick up rock and dirt samples that will be brought to earth in the future. It was launched in 2020 and landed on Jezero Crater in 2021, which used to be a crater lake.

In the far back you can see artifical geysers that go off several times an hour. One of our favorite ways to relax is to take a seat and watch as the pressure slowly rises.

The liquid Litmus display shows how electricity and water relax to create basic (blue) and acidic (yellow) solutions.

Ever dream you can visit Dune? See a desert world trapped under glass ever changing as winds rip across its surface.

Brave the cold and get a great View of San Francisco while eating lunch.

Learn how a heat pump work and burn off some energy in this exhibit. A lot of the exhibits require a bit of elbow grease to work the body as well as the mind.

This exhibit about DNA shows different models of human heads. Each head is modeled after the sane DNA, showing that DNA is not the only factor that decided people’s appearances.

And we finish our tour with vibrating rings showing how vibrational frequencies affect objects like steel rings.

We only showed you a few of the countless exhibits hidden in every corner of the San Francisco Exploratorium. If you plan a visit we strongly recommend staying all day.

Hope you find inspiration!

Maker Faire 2025

July 30, 2025July 30, 2025 Lutin

We are very excited to announce HipMonsters.com will be presenting RobotFreedom at this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire, September 26 through September 28th at Mare Island! We have been training our emotional robots for over a year, living with them, playing with them and watching them grow. Come see our robots in action live!

Here is a recap of the 2024 Bay Area Maker Faire to give you a preview of what to expect. These are some of our favorite exhibits, from an underwater robot explorer to a giant inflatable cuttlefish car.

This is the Maker Faire Bazaar, where visitor can find all sorts of handmade goods, like dice, pottery, and even 3d-printed hot chocolate.

This is a big working model of the solar system that is the size of a room. All of the planet’s orbit times are proportional to the real ones.

This is a small model of a bakery with working lights and miniature baked goods.

This is an old battlebot, complete with two giant spikes in front and four googly eyes (Maker Faire 2023).

This is the Humanoid Robot Comedy Show. These robots can move their faces to show facial expressions and look you in the eyes while they tell jokes.

This robot is built for battle. This is one of the robots that fights in an arena against other robots. It is remote controlled and has arms that can swing around.

This is Dalek FAX, a remote controlled model of a Dalek that moves and talks.

This small robot is built by ROV Tour: Underwater Robotics Adventure. They are remote controlled and have cameras that can show footage of its underwater adventures.

And the award winning After.AI whose 3D printed mechanical flip signs were so fun to watch!

This amazing clock uses a whole wall full of gears to tell time.

This is a part of Serenity, an art exhibit showing three insects that shoot fire at a press of a button (Maker Faire 2023).

These are parts of Astro Botanicals Space Garden, which is a collection of glowing handmade inflatable plants.

This is Sepia Lux, a giant inflatable cuttlefish car that lights up. The tentacles and the fins of the cuttlefish can move, and the eyes can change colors.

This is a truck inspired by a beetle complete with wings and a bright green shell.

This is a peacock vehicle that lights up and moves.

We are looking forward to seeing you all at this year Bay Area Maker Faire!

Hope you find inspiration!

Hummingbirds and Bees

June 26, 2025July 13, 2025 Lutin

It is that time of the year where our yard comes to life with flowers, which bring hummingbirds and bees. As we have mentioned in an early post, we designed part of our yard to encourage wildflowers and native pollinators. That one post convinced Google our site was a gardening site, so we have been reluctant to do another post, but this year was so beautiful we decided to risk it and share. If you want to encourage wildflowers, read our tips here.

Here is a list of the flowers pictured above: Alstromeria, senecio stellata, daisy, yellow roses, pink azaleas, red and yellow sparaxis, foxgloves, and more! Some of these are native wildflowers that just grew in of yard, while others were planted.

Here is a video of some wildflowers in our garden.

Happy Creating!

Castello di Amorosa

May 15, 2025July 13, 2025 Lutin

Ever wish a medieval castle was just a drive away? In you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can visit Castello di Amorosa. It is in Napa just two hours away.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga

We sometimes need to break from the workshop, and Castello di Amorosa is one of our favorite places to relax and refill our creative well.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Court yard

The attention to detail is amazing, and they capture the feel of ancient castles in Europe.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Hall way

Dark and spooky corridors can be found to given you inspiration and chills. Sometimes you can find hidden passageways.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Knight

Beautiful murals and statues are found throughout the castle. There is so much detail to the murals, and everything is done in the same style as the ancient castles.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Knight

Here is a suit of armor stand ready for action. In the background you can see a beautiful mural that shows the knights going into battle.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Gift shop

Everything has the perfect patina to give it a timeless and well-worn look. The tiles in this image are skillfully decorated with intricate patterns.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga downstairs

Here are some more mysterious dimly lit corridors.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga View from the front

The outside of the castle looks just as real. You can see the guard towers and the merlons, and you can even walk along the castle wall. There is also livestock outside the castle.

Hope you find inspiration!

Maker Fest at Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley

April 29, 2025July 22, 2025 Lutin

The Hip Monsters team was thrilled to be invited to a Maker Fest last week at Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley, CA. Ecole Bilingue is a preschool to eighth grade French immersion school focused on preparing their students to make a positive impact on the world.

We had a wonderful time at the maker fest and it was amazing to see such talented makers and dedicated students. The event had great food (including handmade boba tea), a fun crowd, and an exciting lineup of makers. It was a beautiful day in Berkeley which added to the cheer.

Below are just some of the makers at the festival.

Hip Monster’s Robot Freedom

We were there with Number Three of RobotFreedom, who got a chance to test out her new legs. We will have a post in a bit on her leg redesign. The legs worked well and the batteries lasted longer than we anticipated.

We also brought our pneumatics demonstration which is an ideal place to start kids (and adults) on robotics.

The Sewing Corner

There was a great sewing section with helpful makers who quickly got even first time sewers make a tote bag.

Here is a finished toto bag! We have already put it to good use storing cat toys.

Magnification Mayhem vs. Resolution Rumble!

George and Janai Southworth from the San Francisco Microscopical Society had a fantastic demonstration of microbiology. They showed how different filters and lightning impacted what could be viewed through the microscope. Below is a petri dish of bacteria waiting to reveal its secrets.

Solar Racing Car

Members of the UC Berkeley CalSol Solar Racing Car were there giving us the inside scoop on their upcoming race in Nashville, TN. Every few years the car is completely redesigned and rebuilt using the most up to date technology.

3-D Print Making

There was 3D printing space with a great collection of designs and examples. All the designs were coded by kids!

Here is our favorite creation, a 3d printed pink rabbit.

Bike Powered Smoothie Machines

The bike powered smoothie machines were steampunk inspired pieces of art. They were designed and made by the talented students at Ecole Bilingue. They also are a great way to make sure you earn those calories in the smoothie. Every household should have one of these!

The designs are modified stationary bike with blender connected to the front wheel.

Here are the bikes in action making a smoothie.

Painting Robot

They even had a robot making art! It was fun watching the robot as it dutifully created its next masterpiece.

Here is a view of the business end of the painter bot.

Space Wars

And last but not least, a RaspberryPi powered game console designed and built by one of the students. The compact design had custom made controllers that allowed for two person games.

The stand was a clever design using a cardboard box as a case neatly cut so it looked.

Thank you so much to Ecole Bilingue for inviting us to the maker fest! We would love to participate in more of your events in the future.

Hope you find inspiration!

First Robotics Competition in SF

April 9, 2025April 7, 2025 Lutin

We had a lot of fun at the First Robotics Competition at St Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco CA. We cannot think of a better way to spend the weekend than watching teams of highly skills robotics engineers compete for fame and glory!

Above is a photo the entrance to St Ignatius located in the heart of the Sunset district in San Francisco.

Below is a video showing one set of the robotic competition.

The goal is for your team to finish as many tasks as possible before the time runs out. Each team has three robots: two that are focused on competing tasks and one that tries to disrupt the other team’s robots. The court is divided in two with each team having one side as their home where they perform their tasks. The tasks are placing the tubes in a slot, throwing a ball and lifting themselves up at the end of the round.

Here is a close up of one of the robots, number 6822. It is amazing to see how many different and creative designs the teams come up with. For example, some receive the tubes from feeding machine while others scoop them up from the floor.

Here is another robot, 7667, waiting to be serviced.

Above is a photo of a typical repair station. Like with the robots, each team has their own layout and collection of tools optimized for their robot’s design. We had serious tool envy as we walked through the pit.

While none of our photos have people, the event was crazy crowded. We made sure to exclude people when taking photos, so missed about half of the teams at the events. Below is a sample of some of the teams there.

The Otter Bots.

The Aztechs from Alameda, California.

And team 846 with the absolute coolest pin dispenser ever!

The Breaker Bots.

The Pirate Robolution!

The Bot-Provoking.

Bora Robotics from Türkiye!

Blue Magpies from Taiwan!

Find your inspiration!

Paxton Gate

March 17, 2025March 12, 2025 Lutin

Whenever we go to Valencia Street in San Francisco, we always go to one of our favorite stores called Paxton Gate. An eye catching store that is full of interesting natural wonders and oddities.

When we go in Paxton Gate we always will stay there for a very long time, because there is so much to see and explore!

Here are some interesting rocks and minerals, including opal, aragonite, and bismuth! We love to pick out some new and interesting rocks to add to our rock collection.

Here are some more rocks! We love looking at and picking up all of the different rocks. One particular favorite is a desert rose crystal. We like then because they are very beautiful and remind us of a rose. We also love bismuth because it reminds us of Gunnerkrigg Court.

Here are some animals and other random curiosities that are preserved in glass. There is even a human brain in a jar!

These are animals displays and animal figurines. We love to look through all of the animal figurines to try and find our favorite animals.

These are some cool skeletons and bones of different animals, including the skull of a muskrat.

Paxton Gate also has a variety of plants. We love to hang out in the plant section to try and find a new addition for the yard.

More plants! The weirder the plant the better. We love to have odd looking plants in our garden.

Here are some fossil trilobites, ancient creatures that lived in the ocean. There are a variety of sizes. We are especially interested in them because trilobites are the family sign for the Heterodyne family in Girl Genius.

Here are some glass eyes used for taxidermy which we find creepy but cool.

These strange stones are actually owl pellets! Owl pellets are undigested food that an owl would regurgitate.

And a friendly skeleton watches over the store while you explore!

We hope you find you inspiration!

Star Wars at Fan Expo San Francisco 2024

February 13, 2025February 23, 2025 Lutin

As we are getting for ready for this year’s SF Fan Expo, we wanted to post about last year’s fun! We enjoyed all the fandom at the expo (Doctor Who, Star Trek and more) but given our Star Wars cosplay theme this year, we decided to highlight Star Wars.

First, a special call out to the 501st Legion who very quickly recognized one of the HipMonster’s crew cosplaying as Doctor Aphra (one of out all time favorite characters).

The 501 Legion gives advice on how build you own weapons, helmets, and even toys using 3d printers. If you want to print your own Storm Trouper helmet, they will set you on your way!

Here are a few of their 3-D printed toys. The 501 Legion is not only about cosplay and 3-D printing, they also do charity work across the Bay Area.

Here are some of the 3-D printed kits. If you are a Star Wars fan make sure to swing by their booth this year!

If you want your own droid, the Droid Builder Bay Area is the best place to get started. They create life-size droids that look exactly like in the movies. This club of like-minded droid makers are always open to a new member.

This cute little robot can easily be 3D printed at home!

The star of the show was the R2D2s which all looked identical to the one in the movies. We would love to put our AI in one of those machines!

A C1-10P (aka Chopper) from Star Wars Rebels.

There is even a mouse droid!

If the Force is in you, then it is about time you picked up a lightsaber. The FanExpo had several vendors ready to equip Jedi and Sith alike! We loved HookedOnSabers, who lets us examine and try a few of the lightsabers out, even when we were not going to buy one.

As huge Doctor Aphra fans, we were thrilled that Heather Antos was attending! She was an editor on the first Doctor Aphra series and helped bring her to life! Heather Antos was a lot of fun and we even got some inside information from her about the making of Doctor Aphra, and recommendations of other great series!

Drawing of Star Wars character Doctor Aphra. — Here is how I feel thinking how long I have to wait to this year’s Fan Expo.

We also want to give a shout out to comic book writer Jody Houser who signed every scrap of paper we shoved in front of her.

Maker Faire Bay Area Robot’s View

November 4, 2024November 30, 2024 Lutin

Thanks to everyone who helped this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area be so special! We are looking forward to seeing everyone next year and are already improving our show. Below is a photo our booth before the event started. It is hard to believe over one thousand people visited us over the course three days!

Want to see how our autonomous robots experienced Maker Faire Bay Area? Check out the video below, generated based on the stimuli, emotions, and actions of HipMonsters’ two robots over the course of three days at the Maker Faire.

The robots recorded the following sensory data:

💙 Noise: A sudden, loud noise. Represented by the color Blue.

💚 Distance: Motion within 1 foot. Represented by the color Green.

🧡 Movement: Motion within 6 feet. Represented by the color Orange.

💛 Speech: The spoken word “robotics”. Represented by the color Gold.

💗 Touch: Contact on the touch sensor. Represented by the color Pink.

🤖 Frequency of Stimuli: How often or rarely the robots received stimuli. Captured by the Movement of the cube.

🔉 Mood: Happy or overstimulated. Reflected in the choice of Sound.

Turn up the volume of the video! It’s not music you’re hearing, but the robots’ moods given the stimuli.

Since we engaged the Touch sensor at the end of each demo, this means we ran 420 complete demos over 3 days. Our robots have been well socialized!

Happy Creating!

Bay Area Maker Faire Update

October 3, 2024October 14, 2024 Lutin

The HipMonster’s team was quiet online over the summer but working hard in our workshop finishing up our educational presentation on robotics, Robot Freedom. Here is a quick preview of our Robot Freedom which you can see in person at this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

Here is our pneumatic robot designed to put a ring into robotics! Learn how to power a robot by just using your own strength and coordinating with a friend. See how many times you can ring the bell!

Our DIY robotic car is completely controlled by our emotional AI platform. It uses sensors to learn from its surroundings and go in the right direction. See it navigate the world with emotions and learn how you can build one too.

Add, subtract, multiply, and divide using our DIY Leibniz calculator. A steampunk computer that you can build at your home. This calculator can do amazing math with a relatively simple design. Before there was electronics, there was gears!

See the updated Number Three, now a fully autonomous android with emotions. It takes in information from a variety of sensors and processes the information to change its mood. Help it learn to not be afraid of humans!

And Number Two (our centaur robot) has gotten updated as well. The AI platform will soon be available on GitHub so you can build your own emotional AI.

Number Three and Number Two also have a hidden feature when you activate a certain sensor.

We are looking forward to seeing all of you at this year’s Maker Faire!

Happy Creating!