The Best Things I Saw at Open Sauce 2025
STEM, 3D printing, robotics, creators...and me!
I just spent a couple of days at the SF-based annual Open Sauce event, speaking at its Industry Day to an audience of creators, marketers, and other media types. We talked about tech journalism, the state of the media industry, and all the cool things we're doing at Micro Center.
What is Open Sauce? If you've ever pictured what would happen if Maker Faire cross-pollinated with VidCon, you've got a pretty good idea of what Open Sauce is.
Naturally, I also took a day to check out the rest of show, and was blown away by the creativity and cool projects on display. Most of what I saw was decidedly non-commercial, mostly it was largely students or hobbyists showing off their cool personal projects. A few big brands were on display as well, including 3D printer brands, like FormLabs, Elegoo, and Prusa .
Here's my personal list of highlights, and I can't wait to go back next year.
Giant Alienware laptop
This giant Alienware gaming laptop body is powered by an actual Alienware laptop, nestled under its massive wristrest. Creator Alex Corea of the YouTube channel No_Bitrate told me Dell shared the CAD field for the laptop and mouse with him, so he could 3D print the entire thing with maximum accuracy.
I played a little Minecraft and tried a typing test on the giant keyboard, and I didn't do too badly at that, considering I had to type by punching each oversized key one at a time.
My favorite detail was the giant 3D-printed keyboard switches, which each used a small cut-up piece of a metal measuring tape to provide a satisfying click when depressed. You can see that in action in the video below.
Coincidentally, my latest laptop hands-on for MC News is the excellent Alienware 18 Area-51, which has an Nvidia 5090 GPU and Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX -- it's become my current favorite 50-series laptop, and you can find my full impressions (and benchmark scores) here.
Giant Operation game
I suppose I should have known something was up when the creators of this life-size version of the old board game Operation asked me if I had a pacemaker before I played.
But while I was all set to use some big metal tongs to play, I wasn't ready for the game to deliver an actual electric shock when my big metal tongs touched the side (yes, captured in the video below).
Walking coffee table
I think we need more animated/automated/augmented furniture in our lives. But I'm not sure it's this crawling coffee table. There was a creepy, monstrous air to its scuttling back-and-forth movements and you wouldn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to find this chasing you around the apartment.
R/C Dalek
This remote-controlled full-size Dalek was wandering the main hall of the show, so I had to stop and grab a couple of selfies. Sadly, it was too big to fit into my carry-on for the flight home…
Repurposed robot arm shooting gallery
What do you do with an decommissioned robot arm rescued from a landfill? Upcycle it into an arcade shooting game, of course. Using the attached light gun, I managed to underperform even my own low expectations -- so don't necessarily count on me in a firefight.
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