It’s always a shock to witness the scale of things in China’s Bay Area. Despite only being the third largest national central city in China, Shenzhen dwarfs the combined population of the three largest US cities. Descending toward Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, this notion of scale is reinforced, as one immense skyscraper after another dominates the horizon, even as new construction dots the outskirts of the city. Likewise, Maker Faire Shenzhen continues to grow and impress.
This year saw the debut of the Innovation Ambassadors program, which elevated the event significantly by incorporating of a core cadre of established makers and content creators. Largely, but not exclusively drawing on an international talent pool, the Inno crew brought an immense energy and enthusiasm to the event. From well-known names in the US like Simone Giertz, Allen Pan, Beck Stern and Estefannie, to the UK’s Ruth Amos (pictured above), and Spain’s (and Make: V90 author) Jon Garcia Aguado, the eclectic bunch brought a wide variety of experience (and languages) to the Maker Faire Shenzhen. The diverse congregation really drove home the fundamental purpose of the event: innovation and collaboration!
Held over two days across the Vanke Cloud innovation space, home to Seeed Studio founder Eric Pan’s Chaihuo Makerspace, the event was divided into various regions by category. The “A” and “B” booths belonged to special exhibitions and partners, enterprises and startups. “C” booths were individuals and teams, and “D” specifically comprised domestic projects. “E” was primarily universities, with “F” made up of a Hong Kong contingent of makers. “G” and “H” represented individual makers both domestically and around the world.
With so many interesting people gathered in one place, and so much to see, including the many presentations and panels curated by the Seeed Studio team, the going was slow on the first day. The breadth of subjects and expertise was impressive, with many of the Innovation Ambassadors hosting workshops or talks as well.
“G” and “H” contained some really spectacular gems from independent makers and groups. The first project upon entering was an automated crab habitat maintenance system, which managed all aspects of the environment.
Various other product/commercialization projects from student groups were found nearby, including an impressive automated fish-feeding boat.
A host of interesting AI companions in various form factors followed, as well as some fascinating DIY contraptions, such as a battery-free remote that harnessed the power generated by clicking its buttons.
A very cool custom VJing rig and affiliated livecoding setup were making exciting shapes and sounds in the next booth.
One of the most impressive projects from this area was a custom t-shirt (or tote bag, or any other fabric item) printer that used thin printed layers from a Bambu Lab 3d printer with a special bed, creating remarkably durable designs on (in?!) fabric, similar to dye sublimation, from Chinese maker LubanDaddy.
The Modular Theatre/SPI-1 crew were back with an exciting new line of music-making tools and accessories.
The Japanese M5Stack team were once again present in full force, inundating the event with various models of the Stack-chan companion robot.
A particularly fascinating project featured computer keyboards and mice being repurposed into violin-like performance instruments.
Dominoduino, who also showed at Maker Faire Guangzhou, had traveled from Japan to attend MF Shenzhen as well!
Other MFGZ alumni were Billy, Kevin, and the team from Openterface with their Mini-KVM and KVM-GO computer-controlling solutions.
Another outstanding creation from Japan was the “Google Maps in real life” wayfinding “flashlight” which used its beam to tell you how far to go and in which direction to find your destination.
A returning favourite was Kalimov and Jason’s Papercraftbot and eBug workshops, plus Torrey’s Pomoduino pomodoro technique board.
Area “H” was home to many of the Innovation Ambassadors, starting with Benjamin Poilve’s Teensy-powered minichord synth.
Becky Stern’s Laptop Compubody Sock piece drew smiles, while her PS4 Controller Music Sequencer gave participants a chance to create their own interactive jams.
Peter Pan was back with a new-and-improved fortune-telling machine, now capable of printing custom AI-generated maker trading cards.
Nick Valesquez brought a smattering of projects and products, including some rather creepy upcycled Mabu medical health robots, to which he’d added modern face detection.
Over in “D”, Didier aka “Kongduino” was evangelizing Meshtastic, while Saverio Silli and huahua from the Fablab Asia Network had shared the concept of 摸鱼 (touching fish) (i.e. slacking off) with an amusing interactive project, best explained by the video below:
Students and teachers from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute offered, among other things, a payphone that lets you talk to birds, while local design and technology teacher Paul Kwiatkowski was back with more handy and clever 3d-printed models.
Another MFSZ tradition is Takasu-san from Switch Science’s fantastic meet-ups. On Sunday he hosted an absolutely incredible lunch, with representatives from Digikey, Elephant Robotics, Espressif, Fablab, Switch Science and more. It was a really excellent chance to actually have a moment to get to know people, as well as experience some delicacies!
And later that night was the annual “open beer party” at RIchkat Craft Brewing.
Speaking of parties, Saturday night was the official maker party, hosted by Seeed, which is always incredible.
Seeed founder Eric Pan once again dropped some sick AI-generated rhymes in a maker-themed rap (thanks for the video, Takasu-san!), and the house band provided backing for a night full of karaoke.
There was yet another party after that, hosted by D-Robotics, where novice coders learned to integrate AI into their projects using the RDK X5, as well as getting a chance to play with a very impressive D-Robotics compute module-powered robot dog.
This was intended as an exhaustive (but hopefully not exhausting) recap of that Maker Faire Shenzhen 2025 had to offer (similar to last year’s hour-long video recap!), but there were so many more highlights:
Seeing the Makera Z1 (currently live on Kickstarter) accessible CNC machine in person and witnessing its incredible output (plus meeting the lovely team!).
Checking out the upcoming Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 multi-material marvel.
Heaps of innovative new products from M5Stack, as always (they release at least one new one every Friday!).
A bunch of great LattePanda use cases including an AI-powered drift car from the wonderful folks at DFRobot.
The new RDK S100 monster of a machine (review coming soon!) from the lovely D-Robotics team.
Some of the most exciting new devices of the event, including this new handheld prototype from Lily and co at LilyGo.
A very special new version of the PicoCalc from the incredible Clockwork Pi!
And of course, new XAIOs, LoRa and Meshtastic devices, and countless other innovative and customer-incubated products from host organization Seeed!
Congratulations to the Maker Faire Shenzhen team on yet another amazing event! It seems fitting to close with this glorious illustrative summary of the event by Seeed’s own “kawi”:
