On Thursday, Make: was at the Mountain View Tech Showcase, which is organized by the Chamber of Commerce. This version of the showcase featured makers, and Jason Reynolds (aka Jinxbot) was the person who made it happen. I sat down for a short interview with Jason.

Dale: Please introduce yourself.

Jason: I’m Jason Reynolds. I originally founded Jinxbot 3D Printing, last acquired by Peak Technology Enterprises in June of 2025 in June. I am a self-made entrepreneur. I started in my garage with one printer. I earned enough with that one to buy two, 2 to buy four, 4 to buy eight, et cetera, et cetera. 

Dale: So what is this event here? 

Jason: This is the Mountain View Tech Showcase. This is a small section of the amazing technology companies that are coming out of Mountain View. It's not just the big companies, not just the Googles, the Waymos, the LinkedIns, the Genentechs. I could go on and on, but it's not just these large companies in Mountain View — and they're great contributors to the energy that's in the Bay Area. But the Mountain View Tech Showcase, at least this year, is mainly focusing on the makers, the smaller entrepreneurs who are making things in their garage. We're making things in makerspaces, like Hacker Dojo, Maker Nexus, and Circuit Launch. These places are for those who need the tools to help them take their ideas, their products, to the next level.

When I say next level, we're talking about single individual prototypes to small runs of 10, 20, 50, 100. In this same area, we also have the ability to take those small 100-unit runs and turn them into thousands and then into 10,000. That's the magic; that's the network that's here in Mountain View.

Dale: In some ways, we've seen this possibility for a long time. But it hasn't materialized quite the way we hoped for.

Jason: Nothing does. But I think you're right in that the idea of the inventor in the garage is an older one. They come up with an idea, they get a patent, they do a bit of research, they get a bit of funding, and then it explodes. That doesn't happen often. That's like winning the lottery.

Dale: America doesn't seem to have its mind on manufacturing.

Jason: No, they don't.

Dale: Maybe physical AI will change things. We have to connect AI to the physical world. It has to result in things that move around us and engage with us.

Jason: I think what you're touching on is that the manufacturer, the product development cycle has been slow. With 3D printing and additive manufacturing, it's gotten faster, but it's been focused more on residential, not necessarily commercial uses.

Now that 3D printers have become more reliable, it's like the Toyota production way where a lot of the ideas from a company come from the very people who are on the floor. Not necessarily the engineers. It's people who have their feet on the ground. They're solving their own problems. What we've now seen is that people are starting to make their own companies from their garage. They are now able to have the tools to actually do that.

You don't have to keep your idea under your hat, under a bushel. You can take this idea, share with everybody, with the community.

Dale: What I've said is that the maker movement set sharing as a default. You could choose to protect your new idea or you could share it. Most inventors do not have sharing as a default.

Jason: I get call after call about people who have an idea, but they want me to sign an NDA first because they can't share anything without the NDA. I tell them: I'm not in the business of taking your idea. If I was, I'd be a shit manufacturer. I want to help you. I want to empower you to do this. That is the magic of 3D printing and its maker communities like Hacker Dojo and Maker Nexus. These are communities of people who do not want to steal your idea.

If they’re interested, they will have lots of questions. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about it this way? They'll help you sharpen your idea. They can help you get in touch with manufacturers or investors.

Dale: This is why makerspaces are really important. You can't really do this alone, although it's yours to do.

Jason: Absolutely. You have to drive.

Dale: You have to figure out that nobody wants it but you. But you need other people to realize that idea. One way is you get a lot of money and hire a lot of smart people. That's one way. Another way is that you figure out what how other people can help you, and you work with them.

Jason: Absolutely. That's what I did when I was starting my business. I found something that people wanted and I did it. I saw a need, and I filled the need.

Ever since I was a little kid, I always wanted to be an inventor. Even in college, I had a card. All it said was “Jason Reynolds, Inventor.” That was it. When I gave it out, people would ask “how do I get a hold of you?” And I would reply, when the time's right, I'll get a hold of you. Just to be a jackass.

But what I realized is that I don't have to be an inventor to be in this world. I love coming up with my own ideas and my own inventions, but what I really love is helping people discover theirs, helping them think about it in other ways.

Dale: I've always hoped and believed that people have lots of ideas of their own. You gain ideas by learning tools or components and how they can be used. Ideas don’t come out of nowhere. They come from the things in your own life.

With people being in a consumer culture, and now a programmatic AI culture, both of which can make people passive, I wonder will they have own ideas to make things?

Jason: There’s vibe coding.

Dale: I'd be happy if they vibe code, but do they have an idea to vibe code, do they have a project? That's the problem. Anyway, there's not an answer to this. It's just like when you're around people that have ideas, you think everybody has their own ideas, but maybe the majority of people don't.

At the same time, if you are around people with ideas, you begin to have your own ideas. I think that's that's what culture does for us. If you're in a creative culture, and you meet other people that do things, which is what I think happens at Maker Faire, you bring people together, and they see other people doing things, and they realize: ”Yeah. Why can't I do this?” They decide to do it for themselves.

Jason: That's exactly right. That's something that I've always held dear to my hardware, is, is, making that. I like the term maker, but we are creators. We are makers, we are great, but I like what you said is, but I think I wouldn't discount those people who don't have ideas. No, because they're like waiting for the light to be turned on.

Dale: But our culture doesn't invest in them that kind of power. Even in schools, it’s do this, do that. Do what you're told. You can't create anything. You're too young to do anything.

Jason: What's that scene in the Truman Show? Oh, I want to be an explorer. And the teacher pulls out a map and says “Oh, no, you can't. Everything's already been explored. They closed down the patent office and said everything's already been invented.” That's people who have no foresight.

Dale: But let's come back to this event. I mean, you've got a nice group of folks here and we're here in a public square on a sunny day.

Our conversation was interrupted by a person who recognized Jason. “I'm sending you messages, and I'm not getting anywhere,” she said. Jason asked if she sent it to jinxbot.com. “Everything in Jinxpot comes to me.”

She asked: “How did you spell jinx bot?” Jason replied: “J-I-N-X-B-O-T dot com. The woman introduced a man that was running for City Council and they began talking. Local matters took priority and ended my conversation with Jason.

A robotics company named SmAit had two chess robots available for play. You sit down against a steely-eyed, one-armed robot who decides right away the best move. You hope it can’t detect the beads of sweat forming on your brow while you think over your next move.

Wov3, a maker of 3D printed footwear, was exhibiting their slip-on shoes at the showcase. Their 3D printing system “raises production speed, precision, and scalability to new levels, enabling complex, multi-dimensional designs beyond the capabilities of standard molding or assembly-line techniques.” Their recovery footwear is aimed at athletes.

Wov3 announced in April a partnership with Hacker Dojo. Our foot scanner is on-site at Hacker Dojo's Mountain View space — meaning anyone in the Bay Area can walk in, get a precision foot scan, and get matched to a Wov3 recovery slide engineered for their specific pressure profile.” According to Lucy Hu of Wov3, the shoes themselves are not customized for the individual but the scanning helps to identify the best fit.

Arkadiy (Ark) Baltser of Petpin was in the Circuit Launch booth with an AI device to be worn by your pet. Ark said that the device is entirely fabricated in the Circuit Launch facility in Mountain View. Petpin is a pet-wearable device that has a video camera. AI is used to control when the camera turns on and off — so it not continuously recording (while you dog or cat sleeps) and AI also edits the video footage for the pet owner. Petpin’s tagline is “See life as your pet lives it.”

While there’s plenty of images of cats and dogs on the Internet, now they can become content creators themselves — and call themselves “petfluencers,” so says Petpin.

By Kevin Toyama, Make: Books Editor

When we launched the Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival last year, our intention was to inspire makers to showcase their creativity and skills in the context of a universal medium: a movie.

After all, everyone now has a movie camera in their pocket (your phone!), and 120 seconds is ridiculously short enough for anyone to tackle without a big financial or time commitment.

People seemed down on the movie industry at the time, but it appears that there’s been a resurgence thanks to fun original features (Project Hail Mary, Hoppers), nostalgic shows that kids and adults could enjoy together (Toy Story 5, The Mandalorian and Grogu), and what seems like a genuinely historic blockbuster in The Odyssey.

I think some of the buzz is also coming from Backrooms and Obsession, which were the respective first theatrical offerings from Kane Parsons and Curry Barker. Now, I’m way too much of a scaredy cat to have seen either of these horror films (I’m one of those weirdos who just reads their Wikipedia summaries!), but it’s exciting to see first-time filmmakers create something that people like. They’re trying something new.

That’s why I invite you to check out Will Nava’s article about why and how he made MF2MFF 2025 Finalist Aiko’s AI Code. It’s an intriguing chronicle of how he had an idea and just tried something new.

We just extended the deadline to September 8 for this year’s Two-Minute Film Fest, so get inspired by this YouTube playlist of Aiko’s AI Code and the other fun films that were screened at last year’s show — one finalist filmed his project in a single afternoon! Then dress up your friends in some silly costumes and have a weekend of awesome making, and share a story that only you can tell!

More info about the 2026 Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival:
https://makerfaire.com/bay-area/film-festival/

I got my copy this week of Make: 98 and I hope you did too.

One of the great stories you’ll find in this issue was written by Ivan Fisher-Owen and Benjamin Orr who collaborated to create a stop motion video game featuring a mouse in a house. The game, named Éalú (Irish for escape), features hand-built props that were made by Ivan using a CNC in a tight workshop space in Ireland and then filmed one shot at a time using the CNC bed as a set. Ben integrated the video into Unity to create the game from Pennsylvania, mixing physical craft and digital interactivity.

Make Things is a newsletter about the maker community published on Saturday for the premium subscribers of Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co

I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas, projects or news items about the maker community. Email me - [email protected].