When I heard that William Osman, fun famed Youtuber, was trying to re-kindle the spirit of Maker Faire in a new event. I was 100% onboard. I always enjoyed Maker Faire, and was really sad to see it slowly fade from live events a few years ago.

OpenSauce was pitched as a mash-up of two shows, Maker Faire and Vidcon, showing of well-known engineering Youtubers and amateur creators eager to show off their builds.
The first OpenSauce was in San Francisco, on the Embarcadero, which is the long street which follows the northern and eastern shoreline of the city.

When the convention annnounced they were open for submissions, I applied to show the full-size Wheel of Fortune that I made last year. It was still in great shape, taking up most of my living room and mostly only being used for parties. I knew I would love to show it off to three thousand more people, letting them spin and solve puzzles.

I had a strong feeling that the Wheel of Fortune would please almost any crowd, but I wasn't sure it was a great match for Open Sauce. It didn't have an electronic component at all, it was strictly low-tech, but I applied anyway and crossed my fingers.

Sure enough, when acceptance emails went out a few weeks later, I was invited to Exhibit at OpenSauce!

Obviously I wasn't going to hand out hundreds, or even dozens of dollars to random attendees who spun and hit "$600" on the wheel of fortune. I needed a plan to have one or two small prizes for the spinners. I settled on three prize segments. I had "Cockroach", which was a realistic plastic cockroach toy, "Blowpop", which was a lollipop with a chewing gum center, and "Special" which was a Cockeyed.com t-shirt.

I also added some segments for comedic value. I added "Lose a Shoe" and "Death".

Sacramento is roughly 100 miles inland from San Francisco, so I arranged to borrow a small truck. I had made the wheel in three parts, so it could be disassembled and moved.

One surprise about showing at OpenSauce was that I needed to find my own show insurance for my booth. On first check, this looked like it was going to cost $200, but some concessions by the show production team allowed me to use a $50 one-weekend show insurance option.

As the date of the show approached, the core Youtube creators who were in charge started promoting the event. In one video William Osman admitted that the event venue and production was really expensive, and that even if they sold every ticket for $100, the event would still only break even.

A week before the show, exhibitors got final instructions on how to bring and unload their exhibits to Pier 35 in S.F. On Friday, the day before the show start, I packed up the wheel and drove into the city with my son, who had agreed to help me set up the booth.

Upon arrival, we pulled right into the massive doorway of Pier 35 and received our Exhibitor badges. We drove in to a beehive of pre-show activity. I was guided to my spot, jumped out of the truck and met William Osman himself, fielding questions and solving problems on the ground. He asked if I would mind losing a few feet of booth space for the giant keyboard display next door. "No problem". I replied. Next William offered to move a couple of ladders out of my booth space, which I appreciated.

William grabbed one ladder and I grabbed the other and we quickly moved them over to a merchandise booth. I looked over at my son for verification for this bizarre start to the afternoon, silently expressing my shock that I was MOVING LADDERS WITH WILLIAM OSMAN.

This was the perfect start to a crazy fun Friday of setup.

But first, we had to set up the wheel. We quickly unloaded and re-assembled the wheel of fortune, but the first few spins revealed a surprising problem: The whole thing was off-center. For a harrowing 45 minutes, Ferris and I adjusted and attempted to re-center the wheel so that we could leave the booth and take a look around. Eventually we lifted the entire wheel up, off of its stand and re-settled it into it's proper alignment groove, solving our problem. I was incredibly relieved.

I knew I would be manning the booth by myself the next day, so I was eager to get the wheel was ready to go.

• RCADE
  

The Ship Party

After set-up on Friday, all the exhibitors and "creators" were invited to a kickoff party next to the venue. This was completely insane. I had hopes of meeting some of the YouTube stars that this event had promised, but as Ferris and I walked towards the party, a CROWD of famous faces streamed out of the pier entrance and towards the same party.

Now, as I describe these famous faces, if you do not know and love the Youtube Engineer genre as I do, you may be left thinking "who was that now?" So, I'll try to impress upon you how epic this crowd of Youtube celebrities was.

• Michael Reeves
  
• Jake Laser
  

At the top of the ramp, we passed two other exhibitors who were watching the line of stars coming aboard with huge eyes. We didn't know them at the time, but they spotted us and said "Can you believe this?! EVERYONE is here! If this ship goes down, Youtube is going to be blank for two months."

Ferris and I immediately walked to the front of the ship and spotted Styro Pyro sitting in the saddle of a 90mm deck gun. He said "I need to get a photo for my navy friends". I offered to take his photo and he thanked me. Ferris was starstruck.

• The Backyard Scientist
  
• Allen Pan
  
• Colin Furze
  
• Nate from the Internet
  
• Ruth Amos
  
• Styro Pyro
  


We grabbed some complimentary tacos and drinks from the catering tent and continued to walk around star gazing.

The Youtube stars were unsurprisingly excited to meet and talk with one another, they were fans as well, of course.

Some creators were more outgoing than others, eager to address a crowd, while some were definitely more comfortable filming by themselves in a laboratory. Everyone was smiling and laughing and happy. It was incredible.

Evan and Katelyn, a creator couple were hanging with Nerdforge (Martina and Hansi) the other creator couple.

CodeBullet, who had recently revealed what his face looks like, was attracting a crowd with his disctictive voice and striking height.


• Evan and Katelyn
  
• Nerdforge
  

Jake Laser was hanging out with Hacksmith, Nate from the Internet and Jake from the Plasma channel. I asked for a picture with this Mount Rushmore of Youtube Builders.

Adam Savage from Mythbusters was there, attracting a crowd.. when I say "crowd", I mean four people. This exhibitor/creator/vip event was only for about 150 people, about the size of a small wedding, so no one got mobbed, and it was very cool and felt very exclusive but not stuffy. There was also catered food and soda and beer, all freeeeee for this little exhibitor and VIP party.

• Hacksmith
  
• CodeBullet
  
• Jay, Plasma Channel
  
• Adam Savage, Tested
  

Climbing the stairs and rails of the ship, I caught the eye of an Open Sauce VIP attendee. "Rob Cockerham? from Cockeyed?". Yes! This was exactly the place where I could still be recognized in public! So fun! Even nicer than meeting a Cockeyed reader was the look on my son's face. He had no idea that could happen to his dad!

I got a photo with Nile Red, the chemist.

• Nile Red
  


After a few hours, it got dark outside and the party migrated back into the warehouse, where the Youtubers got giftbags from... the NHRL Robot fighting league.

With the booth set up, Ferris and I got ready to drive back home to Sacramento. Tomorrow I would be returning to run the booth on my own.





Saturday



A huge line of perhaps 150 Open Sauce attendees was waiting outside Pier 35, waiting to get into the show.

I was really happy that exhibitors had their own door.


I fixed a few numbers on the wheel and I was ready to go!

I just tacked up the first puzzle and waited for some visitors!
I think the very first thing that anyone planned for this convention was the 30' Among Us figure with the giant ass, and here it was!

People loved the Wheel of Fortune, and of course they mostly just wanted to give it a hearty spin!

I had arrived with a stack of prepared Wheel of Fortune-style word puzzles. I didn't have a video display or a Vanna, so I just used a poster board for each puzzle and covered individual letters with Post-it Notes. With the Post-it Notes, I could reveal the hidden letters and hide them again. I chose puzzles outside the usual guidelines of Family Television.

Some of the puzzles were:
Fentanyl Overdose
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Driving under the Influence
Aiding and Abetting
French Dip Au Jus
Speak Now Taylor's Version
I like my coffee how I like my men

The way the game worked was simplified, because I didn't want three contestants to be spinning for 20 minutes. I let everyone spin and then have one guess at a letter... Unless they hit Bankrupt, Death or Lose a Shoe.










My keyboard neighbors invited visitors to play typing attack and the result was a panic-smashed keyboard which had taken a legendary amount of abuse over the day.


I had probably 400 wheel spinners the first day, and the hours zipped by. When six o'clock came, it was time to go home for the day.

It was Saturday night, and very tempting to hit up an exhibitor's after-party, but I was socially exhausted. Instead I went across the bridge to crash at Rob and Helen's house in Marin.





Museum of Youtube Builds

On Sunday morning I arrived early again and had about an hour to look through the building and to check out the exhibits before the crowds arrived.

The Youtubers themselves didn't have exhibit booths, but they did have an area where their legendary... actually, truly legendary creations were displayed. I think it was called the Library or Museum of Youtube Builds.

The first thing I spotted was this gigantic hamemade book from the Nerdforge channel. I was delighted to see it because I had just watched the build video for this and the video ended without really explaining what the book was for.

Here it was! They had it as an Open Sauce guest book!

They had the gasoline-powered pogo stick from Backyard Scientist.

And they had William Osmans long-distance power wheels truck.

Backyard scientist was also exhibiting two of his rocket-powered knives.

These flew at 400 mph to devestating effect.

This orange seaplane was marked as from rc test flight, but I didn't remember a video on it.
Incredibly he finished the video ten months after the Open Sauce convention, just in time to be linked from this article.

William Osman's wooden bicycle.

Allen Pan's robot to give a snake its legs back.

William Osman's homemade chainsaw (from 5-minute crafts).

The convention had 16 speaker events over the two days. For myself these would have been the main attraction of the event, and many of the Youtubers stayed to watch these themselves, because they were usually fans of one another.

This guy invented and showed his gigantic upgrade to the helicopter: Helicopter 2.

Allen Pan sold merch out of a white van.

Wren, from Corridor Crew had a line of people wanting to meet him and take photos.

Wren's girlfriend was there and she recognized me from Cockeyed.com. Her dad is a fan!

Youtubers had a private lounge area where they could hide out, but most of them came into the convention floor and met their fans.

Kevin, aka Backyard Scientist, was one of the producers of the Open Sauce show.

He saw my exhibitor's badge and asked what I was there to exhibit. I told him about the Wheel of Fortune and waiting weeks to get approved to exhibit. He quickly assured me that the Wheel was one of the first things they agreed to approve for the convention.

That moment was one of my favorite moments of the whole show!
Getting a photo with Jabril

Getting a photo with Grady Hillhouse (Practical Engineering)



I think Grady and Emily the Engineer were the only youtubers who actually spun the Wheel of Fortune. Poor Emily lost her shoe!


Jessica had a very large Furby at her booth.

Paul Straw was another booth-neighbor of mine. He had set up a make-your-own egg drop contraption with styrofoam and balloons and hot glue and cardboard, etc. to make and compete on a convention-wide egg drop on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was another full day of visitors spinning the wheel and solving puzzles.

In the afternoon my friends Jason and Milo showed up and gave me a break by taking over the wheel duties. Jason has been an event M.C. before and knows how to handle a line like a midway barker.

I took the opportunity to grab some food and to look around the convention floor a bit more.

Power Wheel racing

The huge Exosapien robot had been towering in a corner of the pier the whole weekend, and on Sunday a pilot strapped in and clomped around in a fenced-off area.



The pinewood car shredder at the end of the track.

The Shredder Derby was an event that was exactly like a cub scout pinewood derby car race, but the losing car is immediately hoisted into a powerful shredder and reduced to woodchips and sawdust! Completely incredible idea and execution.

And I'm not just saying that because I met them.

The best part was that if you raced and lost, they handed you a plastic cup full of woodchips that used to be your racecar.



Medhi (Electroboom) works his way through a long line of fans.



I also met Peter Stripol, but did not get a photo.



Streamer Sushi Dragon at the wheel.



I always forget how unbelievably loud Tesla coils are. This photo was from before the show opened.

The Next Decade booth.

William Osman and his wife running the egg drop finale.

People joyfully testing out Jake Laser's web shooter toys

I had an excellent view of the main merch table and the line would get super long if William Osman and/or his wife were behind the counter.

Finally it was 6pm on Sunday and it was time to disassemble the wheel and pack up the show. The exhibitors were downright giddy while packing up.

Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. It was an awesome show, and I was struck by the realization that nothing went wrong.

 

Michael Reeves goofing around on a railway handcar.





In summary, this first Open Sauce show was an exciting, entertaining three-day adventure. If its goal was to revive the spirit of Maker Faire, it hit a home run!

See you at the next one! Open Sauce June 15-16, 2024!