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!

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.

Indie Mart in the City

October 15, 2011July 9, 2023 T'ien Kou

Last weekend Indie-Mart got back into action with an outdoor event in San Francisco. The weather was perfect, there was lots of vendors and everyone was in a festive mood. It has been awhile since the last Indie-Mart and we are very happy to see event return. For those of you do not know about Indie-Mart it is a festival featuring indie artists and craftspeople. It is a great place to shop, eat or just hang out.

There was a wide variety of vendors this year. Soap seems to be in the new DIY trend. The food variety this time was also greatly improved with chicken and waffles and Chairman Bao Bun Truck. As always, they have a lots beer and wine to choose from. Check out Indie-Mart to see when the next event is.

I bought a great three piece series of robots by Maggie Hurley that I have been eyeing for sometime. I love her robots.