Ok I’m starting with the interesting pictures

The mobile fablab is a full fablab inventory in a trailer that is only uhhh a few thousand pounds over its max weight limit. I’ve spent many delightful hours using this trailer, and so have many other people who have taken care of it over the years. It’s also where I became friends with Jeff Sturges, one of my favourite people!

So apparently the White House approves of this “maker movement”. I’m not sure the extent to which they understand or have studied the “maker movement”, but they like it anyway and decided to have a “maker faire” on their lawn. They decided the Mobile Fab Lab would be a good addition, so I spent some time making sure it was in tiptop condition.

It has a shopbot, a nice one,

and more

and more

Here’s a full video tour I did of me running all the machines at once:

So after all that prep, we did take it to the White House. And they decided it was too dangerous to open! Soooooooo… ok whatever. But we took some stuff out of the fab lab and demoed it in front of the fablab, including a bunch of machines I’ve made with Jonathan Ward, Ilan Moyer, and James (more of my favourite people).

This is what the WSJ said and The MIT News Office.

But… it was almost 39C, which was sort of too hot for me to be doing computer stuff:

Here’s me uncomfortably setting up

And it turned out to definitely be too hot for my GPU to be doing computer stuff:

(this is me trying to cool off my GPU) (note also the kickass bruises I’m sporting hell yeah don’t mess with me)

Soooo… I demoed the machines to Obama without X. Turns out I can run all my machines from a root shell for demo purposes. I.e., it turns out I am super badass.

a dorky badass

I also skateboarded on Leigh Christie’s folding skateboard at the White House

And besides Obama, John Holdren, Bill Foster, and Rush D. Holt also stopped by. Science!