Open Sauce 3: The Ultimate Evolution in Retro Arcade Cabinets
Open Sauce, the irreverent engineering convention founded by YouTuber William Osman, took over the San Mateo Event Center last week with an electrifying mix of robots, games, and skeletons — plus 150 featured creators. The event was a blast, blending creativity and surreal fun in equal measure. Though we tried our best, we couldn’t catch everything. Still, here’s a curated selection of many—though not all—of the standout exhibits from the show.
Metalmancy Arcade Cabinets
Metalmancy’s arcade machines, built by Carlo Supina, are powered by Framework boards and built like tanks. They were running games by developer Joanna May, who was promoting her Chickensoft tools for devs.
Framework PC
Framework was also on site, challenging people to see how quickly they could assemble a laptop from their modular parts.
Bash Em! Bop Em!
Presumably beating their own record for assembly, this dance-controlled robot battle was first played the night before Open Sauce. Each team member lives in a different city and couldn’t bring everything together before Friday. But the mashup of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Dance Dance Revolution floor pad controllers, little hydraulic cylinders, and 3D printed connections came together for the show. Attendees had a great time playing. And apparently I’m awesome at it. – Sam
Engineezy: Innovation Meets Style in Wearable Tech
More than one project came together at the deadline. Engineezy built this wearable marble machine in a week.
Sashimi Slayer: The Ultimate Sushi Slicing Arcade Challenge
We spotted this sword-controlled rhythm game earlier at alt.ctrl.GDC, and the internals are still holding up better than the toy swords around them. They’ve improved the GUI and added a bonus level since March.
3D Snake: Classic Gameplay Reimagined in Stunning 3D
The team that brought the world a giant keyboard is back with 3D Snake. The game was a side project, but works well to demo their smoother, reinforced giant keys. The game will twist your brain in a good way.
Maker Nexus and Their Team Building Labyrinth
This four-person ball maze by Maker Nexus is heavier than it looks, but it will make you some instant new friends.
DIY “Benchtop” CNC Mill
This DIY CNC mill (that’s definitely too big for a bench) started as a university project by Michael Dean and blew through its budget right off the bat. But it’s still cheap for a CNC mill, and the aluminum, brass, and 4140 steel finished parts on display looked great.
Compass CNC Router
Shariff DMC: Desktop CNC Machines
For something more hands-off and heavier duty, this low-cost benchtop mill was made with production in mind. Shariff DMC wasn’t allowed to run the cooling system, but it carved through aluminum on a shaky table with zero chatter.
Fernside Dragons
These inflatables started as a lockdown project and evolved into a growing collection of decorations and costumes. You haven’t seen Nyan Cat until you’ve seen one running around an expo with legs sticking out.
Paul Bunyan’s Pocket Watch
This mechanical wooden pocket watch by Nick Allen was mesmerizing, probably because it was 300 lbs. If you doubted it belonged to Paul Bunyan, there was a bell jar of Paul Bunyan-sized pocket lint to prove it.
Wooden Mechanical Calculator
If you need even more gears, William Gerhardinger’s mechanical calculating machine was carved with a scroll saw and worked wonderfully. He was lifting the cover and showing off the mechanism all day.
Open Workout System
“No subscriptions and no bricked hardware” is the driving ethos behind this open source workout system. Users can program in the exact weight they want to simulate, and it will provide the equivalent level of resistance while taking up a fraction of the space of a traditional set of weights. Not a bad tool for physical therapy.
Novoloom
Combining custom patterns and procedurally-generated designs, Novoloom plans to launch online ordering for custom clothing kits soon.
Evette’s Niche
Evette’s Niche displayed a wide range of whimsical machines, from costumes and accessories to musical art nouveau instruments. She taught herself Blender to pull off the organic designs.
SkyTech Electronics
SkyTech Electronics put old hardware to practical use by building one Mac Classic into a robot tank, and another into a thermal photo booth. They also had the oldest electronic guestbook I signed. – Sam
BAYLUG
The Bay Area Lego User Group brought vintage space models and wild new designs, like a Blacktron Strandbeest.
Extrastellar Entity Labs
Mace Morningstar and Peter Turnbull built Alphonse, an animatronic goat head, for a heavy metal pagan ritual performance. People trusted the NFC tag enough to feed it their phones.
SF Bay Area Japan Maker Community
The SF Bay Area Japan Maker community brought projects from a variety of makers, including a very popular 30-second click counter game, Tetris art, and (fittingly) 3D-printed Pokémon. Be sure to visit them at Maker Faire Bay Area.
AdamCAD
Those interested in making their own 3D shapes could stop by the AdamCAD booth, which demoed their parametric text-to-3D AI CAD software at Maker Faire Bay Area 2024. They’ve since added a “creative mode” for organic shapes.
Open Source Special Needs Devices
Adaptive tech tools for special needs kids are surprisingly expensive and still may not do exactly what you want. T-Rex Successful, Slightly Famous, Autistic Adult builds projects like the Python-programmable communication board (left), which are a perfect fit for open source solutions.
Austin Bradley’s Bad Ideas
Some games make sense being larger, others definitely don’t. Two people were trying to play a game with Ausin Bradley’s giant Wii remote which, like the sign says, probably shouldn’t exist.
The Gateway
This trippy, six-foot-high, rippling hexagon wall by Andrew Kotite and Ben Otzalay of OK Design wins the award for most mesmerizing wall.
Stochastic Volumetric Display
This awesome DIY project by James Hoffman is made of off-the-shelf RGB LED strings. Users can lay them any which way, and the software maps them all automatically using two cameras – one capturing the horizontal angle, one vertical angle – for an instant volumetric display without fussing with pain points like perfect grids. It was amazing, and it had a great demo game with a Leap Motion hand tracker.
Geoff Peterson Talking Animatronic Robot Skeleton Sidekick
It’s hard to see every project at events like these, even when they come to you. Kevin Lange’s mostly accurate Geoff Peterson skeleton from The Late Late Show was wheeling around, making new friends and weirding people out.
Talk Tips
At the event, YouTubers took the stage across three sessions to share invaluable advice for aspiring video creators. Key tips included creating content that is “as long as it needs to be” to keep viewers engaged, and treating your first five videos as learning experiences—because realistically, few people will watch them initially.
In a fun twist, the event also demonstrated that even grown adults can be outplayed by kids, as one adult lost at a giant game of Operation to a child.
But beyond the games and advice, the most meaningful takeaway was the power of community. Editor-in-Chief Keith Hammond connected with creators Kayte Sabicer and Jorvon Moss (aka Odd Jayy), highlighting that the true “sauce” comes from the friendships and collaborations made along the journey.
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