Sawppy returned to the downtown Los Angeles Mini Maker Faire for 2019 as a roaming exhibit. This is a change from last year where Sawppy was part of a rover themed booth with other JPL Open Source Rovers. Sadly this year we were missing representation from the JPL Open Source Rover project, none of the three rovers from last year were present this year.

Los Angeles Maker Faire has grown even more this year and spilled into the street, specifically 5th Street adjacent to the library which was shut down for the event to make room for an additional row of exhibits. Many of the larger booths were out here, including a robot combat arena and a few car projects like the Eggscape Eggsperience.

There was forecast for rain, which dampened things literally and otherwise. Fortunately Sawppy is prepared for rain with a rain coat developed for Maker Faire San Mateo earlier in the year, so the light rain was not a problem.

https://twitter.com/SawppyRover/status/1203393668045889537

I have fun showing Sawppy to interested attendees, but it is also an opportunity to chat with other like-minded exhibitors. I started trying to strike up conversation with people as soon as I got in line to check in as a maker. It turns out I was behind a member of the Air Quality Management District's Air Quality Sensor Performance Evaluation Center. They were here at Maker Faire to tell people about the availability of low-cost air quality sensors. Both for AQMD's own purposes and as something that could be fun for makers to tinker with. They brought a few sensors for show and I asked if Sawppy could act as a mobile air quality sensor for a day... and they said yes!

https://twitter.com/SouthCoastAQMD/status/1203397412666003456

Even though no JPL OSR builds were present, Sawppy was not the only rover there but most of the others were static 3D-printed models. Probably from here. The one I found actually interesting is a motorized version that was done as an example application of the 3DoT board by Humans for Robots.

https://twitter.com/SawppyRover/status/1203445167757221888

It was a fun day of adventure for Sawppy, topped off with a shout-out from Make!

https://twitter.com/make/status/1203406735211294720