I just got back from Shenzhen, China, and though the travel was brutal (more than a day and a half in each direction) my five days in China’s third most populous city were incredible! The primary impetus for my journey, Chiahou Maker Space’s 13th Maker Faire Shenzhen, was one of this year’s most incredible, exceeding even last year’s fantastic event in my opinion. With two days to spare before my 144-hour visa ran out, I also managed to experience some factory tours and visit the legendary electronics market before boarding the last possible ferry to Hong Kong to catch my first of many flights home!

Table of Contents

• Maker Faire Shenzhen

• Make Things on Making Things

• Huaqiangbei, Baby!

• December Livestreams

Maker Faire Shenzhen

This year’s Maker Faire Shenzhen had the theme “Enchant Everything with AI,” which was plainly evident in many of the 120+ exhibition booths, demonstrating everything from AI-enabled stuffed animals to a pose-estimation camera that let you use your body as a controller in the classic Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers. The energy was more infectious than ever with the 2024 edition, with an amazing range of projects and products from large companies like Arm, NVIDIA, Raspberry Pi, and Seeed, to startups, universities, and individual makers both local and from fields afar, including Japan, Russia, and India. Saturday night culminated in Seeed’s 16^th birthday celebration, with drinks, food, and karaoke to be enjoyed by all. I don’t have space to dive into all that I saw at the Faire in this newsletter, but I captured over an hour of highlights from some of my favourite parts in the video below:

Make Things on Making Things

The day after MFSZ was filled with factory tours. First was Seeed’s own facility, an impressive incubator for prototyping and small runs, filled with talented people and amazing equipment, such as a selective soldering machine and even a wind tunnel! Next stop was a CNC, injection moulding, and 3d printing specialist. We marveled as shapes emerged from blocks of aluminium, parts as large as car hoods were formed from molten plastic, and large stereolithography 3d printers cranked out huge models, one layer at a time. Next was a PCB manufacturing factory, where we had the chance to observe every step of the printed circuit board process from creating the substrate to assembling, testing and shipping. After this last stop on the official tour, we caught a taxi to M5Stack’s new office for their grand opening party, plus a special private tour, where we got an extensive behind-the-scenes look at one of the most prodigious IoT hardware innovators, including an astonishing “calendar” showing off the new products that they release every single Friday!

Huaqiangbei, Baby!

With a few hours on Tuesday before I had to head back, there was no way that I was leaving Shenzhen without a visit to Huaqiangbei, the world’s biggest electronics market. The scale and immensity was almost beyond comprehension, with entire multi-story malls packed to the rafters with electronics components, consumer electronics, and specific niche technologies like CCTV cameras and amateur radios. I felt like a kid in a candy store, except the candy store was a six-story mall with each level packed with LEDs and batteries and microcontrollers and … just about anything you can imagine. And in addition to the breadth and range of goods, the prices were unbelievable, with vast savings even compared to AliExpress, and that was before haggling. In fact, a friend PayPal’d me $300 with instructions to just buy as much cool stuff as I could find, and I barely scraped past $200 in the few hours I had, despite my best Supermarket Sweep impression. With only several hours to explore, I hardly scratched the surface of the thousands of stores that can be found in the area – I can’t wait to head back and explore further ASAP – so let me know if there’s anything you want me to grab for you while I’m there!

December Livestreams

Next week we have not one, but two amazing livestreams for you to enjoy!

First up, on December 3rd, is our Fireside Chat with Steph Piper to celebrate her new Maker Skill Trees book.

Then the very next day, December 4th, we have the Make: Volume 91 Launch Party! Join our editorial staff and some of our favourite authors from this year’s boards guide as we nerd out about companion bots, music, and of course, 2024’s most exciting dev boards!

I’m still massively jetlagged and exhausted, so am looking forward to catching up on some desperately needed rest this holiday weekend, but asfhdahjfdsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa {oops, David appears to have fallen asleep on his keyboard – Ed}

David Groom, Shenzhen superfan

Make Things is a weekly newsletter for the Maker community from Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co