{
  "title": "Bring Your Weirdest Idea to the Maker Faire",
  "date": "2026-04-07",
  "author": "Benjamin Stein",
  "categories": [
    "personal",
    "family",
    "ai"
  ],
  "excerpt": "Kids walk up, describe their wildest change, and Claude Code rewrites the game's source on the spot.",
  "url": "/blog/2026/04/07/bring-your-weirdest-idea-to-the-maker-faire/",
  "content": "My kids Gabi (15) and Zeke (13) and I are running an exhibit at the [Piedmont School Maker Faire](https://www.piedmontmakers.org/school-maker-faire) this weekend.\n\nHere's the setup.\n\nA TV in the corner running a tiny arena shooter. A white square (the player) dodges red squares (enemies) and shoots them with white bullets. It's deliberately boring.\n\nA kid walks up. We ask what they want to change.\n\n\"Make the player a dragon.\"\n\n\"Make the enemies dancing bananas.\"\n\n\"Add a freeze ray that slows everything down.\"\n\nWhatever the kid says gets typed into Claude Code. The screen flips to BUILD MODE with their name on it. A few seconds later the game reloads and they're playing their idea. The next kid walks up and the game gets weirder.\n\nEvery few hours we hit `/baseline` and reset to boring white squares. Every previous change is still in git history, we just stop running them. Then we start over.\n\nThe whole thing is open source: [github.com/benstein/makerfaire2026](https://github.com/benstein/makerfaire2026). Fork it, run it at your school.\n\n## Why this, not a robot\n\nGabi and Zeke picked the concept. The School Maker Faire usually has robots, 3D printers, soldering. They wanted something the younger kids could participate in without any hardware or waiting for a tool. Just tell them what you want, watch it happen, play it.\n\nWe tested it on some kids before the School Maker Faire. Every one of them went through the same arc: they'd start skeptical (\"wait, is that real code?\"), probe for the limits (\"can it do [ridiculous thing]?\"), and by the fourth or fifth request they weren't asking permission anymore, they were shouting ideas.\n\nGabi and Zeke love the exact moment it clicks — the quick pause before the avalanche of requests starts.\n\nCome say hi if you're at the [School Maker Faire](https://www.piedmontmakers.org/school-maker-faire). Bring your weirdest idea.",
  "html_url": "https://benjaminste.in/blog/2026/04/07/bring-your-weirdest-idea-to-the-maker-faire/",
  "json_url": "https://benjaminste.in/blog/2026/04/07/bring-your-weirdest-idea-to-the-maker-faire/index.json",
  "markdown_url": "https://benjaminste.in/blog/2026/04/07/bring-your-weirdest-idea-to-the-maker-faire/index.md"
}