Open Sauce survived another year! The scrappy event keeps growing, and in 2025 it moved again, this time to the San Mateo Fairgrounds, an even larger venue, with hundreds of booths and hundreds of parking spots.

Instead of a spinning wheel exhibit, I submitted plans for a booth with a 3D printing demonstration. I've done a lot of 3D printing, and I love the technology, but 3D printing is generally a slow process. Printing almost anything takes more than a few minutes, and that's not including the modelling and slicing and warm up.

I came up with a plan to exhibit a 3D printer and script that would let me custom 3D print people's names in about 30 seconds, with just a single layer of plastic, outlining the letters.

I wanted to have a single line of filament trace out each name in cursive, but that turned out to be quite difficult, so instead I imported coordinates from a font file and transformed it into G-Code for each letter. Then I wrote a script to jam the letters together into full names.

The G-Code looks like this:

G1 X10.1 Y10 Z0.28 E20 F1500.0 E23; Move to start position
M83; relative extrusion
G1 X3.3375 Y15.9875 E0.4
G1 X3.175 Y16.275 E0.4
G1 X2.775 Y16.9 E0.4
G1 X2.775 Y17.2 E0.4
G1 X2.775 Y17.8 E0.4
G1 X4 Y18.6875 E0.4
G1 X4.5 Y18.6875 E0.4
G1 X4.725 Y18.6875 E0.4

As you might be able to see, the G-Code tells the printer what coordinates to visit, and how much plastic to squeeze out on the way there.

I applied to Open Sauce in May, and my exhibit was accepted! The event requires you to submit a sketch of what your booth will look like. This is a brilliant step, because it forces you to consider signage, layout and merchandising for your spot. For example, my sketch included a widescreen monitor and a sign that said "Fast Free and High Quality" with High Quality crossed out. This would prove to be everyone's favorite feature of my booth.

In a couple of months, I had convinced my girlfriend to join me and to help with the booth, and it was time to get set up in San Mateo!

Arriving on the Friday before the show, I was bracing myself to once again be shunted off to a dusty corner of the convention center.

BUT NO! I HAD THE BEST SPOT IN THE WHOLE SHOW!

I was right in front, just inside the door of the convention center, where every single Open Sauce attendee would walk past! This was awesome!

Mary and I set up the booth, and got ready for the Friday night party.

William and Cameraman John filming the demonstration of a booth behind me.

https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamOsman2

In 2023, it was a night better than I could have imagined, rubbing elbows with some of my favorite creators, and taking photos with all of them. I was with my son that night, and we met William Osman, Nile Red and Michael Reeves, and 20 more. Like, everyone.

In 2024, the Friday night party had been more segregated. The big famous stars were rubbing elbows with themselves, while the exhibitors milled about, meeting each other. It was a huge let down after the magnificence of the first year.

In 2025, the Open Sauce Friday night party was BACK!

In line for the taco truck, I met Brett from Ghost Town Living.

The Friday night party was out in the grassy plaza, with a taco truck serving free tacos and an ample supply of beer and other beverages.

And I met Destin from Smarter Everyday!

And I met Styropyro (center) and Ben from Nighthawk in Light.

If you ever meet two Youtubers chatting to each other, ask to take a photo with both of them, as if you recognize both.

https://www.youtube.com/@styropyro

https://www.youtube.com/@Nighthawkinlight

And I met Chubby Emu. He is a Doctor (Pharmacist?) that makes videos describing the physiology of obscure human illness and death.

Thanks to deep archival knowledge from my son I was able to cite his early Geometry Dash videos and get that knowing head nod of appreciation.

https://www.youtube.com/@chubbyemu/featured

Mary and I stood at a high table with our complimentary taco dinner and were joined by James Orgill, from Action Lab. This was a fun one because I knew who he was, but I played it cool and we just ate tacos and talked about what a fun event William has put together with his friends.

Mary asked how he got started with Youtube and if he remembered his first big, popular videos that kicked off his channel. (Usually a great subject for any content creator).

Action Lab

And I met Chelsea, a.k.a Caretaker on William Osman's Channel.

Notably, she was in a great mood! Because Open Sauce is a huge production, and likely a years-long emotional and financial strain on her family, she has likely suffered through some really scary and dicey situations with this show.

I think I asked "how are YOU doing?" And she said she was doing really great!

Seeing her happy in the exhibit hall was a genuine relief! I think Open Sauce might be a success!

Yes, we were photobombed by Cody from Cody'sLab.

Kevin, the Backyard Scientist (kneeling) had brought his portable laser engraver, and was offering to engrave metal items with an Open Sauce logo.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheBackyardScientist

Bonus Sandra standing behind him.

https://www.youtube.com/@allenpan

https://www.youtube.com/@agingwheels

https://www.youtube.com/@EmilyTheEngineer

Friday was the equipment load-in and set up. We were all set up with a computer, 3D printer and signs.

On Saturday, the show opened to convention visitors.

We could see a crowd gathering beyond the registration table and security.

The gates opened and attendees started streaming in!

As I mentioned, my booth was just inside the show entrance, so I immediately got a ton of foot traffic and started printing names immediately!

This was the process:

1. Someone came up to the booth and we offered to print their name.

2. Mary typed their name into our custom app, and a string of G-Code came out, which she then pushed to the 3D printer.

3. Held at a constant high-temperature, the printer jumped into action, zipping around the base plate and squeezing out the outline of their names. Because there is no enclosure on my printer, the visitors had a pretty good view of the process.

4. When finished, the base plate would extend towards the visitor, as if offering the name to them.

Half of the people at Open Sauce are fully familiar with the process and possibilites of 3D printing, but half of them still find it a mysterious and exciting process.

So there were two types of visitors: 1. People who were interested in talking about the GCode and the build plate and the history of printing advancements and 2. People who were interested in seeing this absolutely most basic demonstration of the simplest possible 3D printing.

And more than a few were excited for any free souvenir!

This name was SIVA.

On Saturday I met Yvonnie, Sydney and Disguised Toast from Offline TV.

https://www.youtube.com/@OfflineTV

Annoucing that I could print names in 38 seconds, I had a few people ask if the printer was some kind of special high-speed printer.

No, I admitted, I was just giving it a very simple job to do.

Some people joked that I was actually 2D printing, because my names were only one layer thick.

Our setup required constant attention, so most of the day Saturday we were glued to the booth.

But on Sunday morning before the show started, we wandered around and got to see some of the other exhibits.

One of my favorites was this "Would you have survived the Titanic" display, featuring a wooden "door" on giant coil springs. I didn't see it in action, but I assume you had to balance on the door and avoid tipping into the frigid North Atlantic.

Open Sauce is also a place to hear lectures and presentations by your favorite youtubers.

Before the first talk on Sunday, the audio/video team was running audio, lights and music testing.

In back of the stage seating was the 2025 Open Sauce Creators Museum.

Bronze mushrooms from Cody's Lab

We also had enough time on Sunday to visit the exhibitor booth across the aisle.
These guys had created a pad printer.

A pad printer is a machine used in an indirect offset (gravure) printing process to transfer a 2-D design onto a 3-D object. It works via a flexible silicone pad that picks up ink from an etched metal plate and stamps it onto irregular, curved, or textured surfaces.

These are the type of printer that inks the faces of Lego minifigs, and they had a stack of little bricks you could get printed.

Mary asked them to print across her thumbnail instead, and they were skeptical, but obliged!

More visitors.

Sunday was just as busy as Saturday, with perhaps a few more families and a few less engineers with PhDs.

After two days posted up at the booth, we were definitely watching the clock for 6pm on Sunday afternoon, ready to pack up and drive home to Sacramento.

We were also going to Disneyland the next day!

At a show like this, the crowd wanes before the end of the day, but there are also latecomer attendees who are running around trying to hit all the best booths before the show ends, so it is considered really bad form to pack up and leave early.

In fact, producers of shows like this usually have to threaten and cajole exhibitors to stay until the clock actually strikes 6.

Finally the day was over and we pronounced it a huge success!

The weekend tally was 186 names printed and distributed!

I could summarize the weekend by saying that we used 200 grams of filament, but really the weekend was about meeting and chatting with more than 186 curious and creative people and introducing some to the wonders of 3D printing!

It sounds like marketing hype, but Open Sauce 2025 was bigger and better than previous shows, and San Mateo Events Center seems like the right spot for the event. Here's to next year, and long live Open Sauce!