Hacker · Maker · Inventor · Musician
Technologist, founder, speaker, and Executive Producer of Maker Faire Miami.
I build robots and interactive installations out of Moonlighter FabLab in Miami, including a decade of Poetry Robots commissioned by the O, Miami Poetry Festival. Hardware on GitHub. Hot sauce at Barbaromojo. More about me →
Back at Maker Faire Bay Area for the 20th anniversary. Running the Foundry Stage, a liquid nitrogen cloud, a 28-foot fire-breathing octopus, and my blue ribbon picks.
October 2026
My Apple Watch tracked my swimming and walking, but drumming only got a Light Cardio guess. So I built DrumPulse, an Apple Watch app that counts drumming as a real workout and shows when I rush, drag, or fade.
August 2026
A theremin you play by waving at a webcam. MediaPipe hand tracking, a 7-mode Web Audio synth, and a 1960s record-sleeve UI. Built for Maker Faire Miami 2026, finished for 2027.
May 2026
The robot was fine. The internet wasn't. A cloud LLM that hung fifteen seconds on bad Faire WiFi, the fifty-line fix, and the power-save bug that looked like a crash loop.
April 2026
Meet Ring-O, the Pi-powered companion that gives Omnibot eyes, a brain, and a soul. Debugging YOLO11, ditching the LLM for math, and shipping to Maker Faire Miami 2026.
March 2026
Sculpting a banana handset, painting the phone yellow, and dyeing the cord for its home at Peel in Miami.
March 2026
Watchdog timers, crash recovery, and hiding Poemafone at 777-FILM for the O, Miami Poetry Festival.
March 2026
A $3 MP3 module, a broken is_playing() function, and the hardware pin that saved the project.
March 2026
Brute-forcing a salvaged phone keypad's pin matrix and taming a bouncy bottom row for O, Miami.
January 2026
Giving the Omnibot eyes and a brain. Pi 5, an AI camera, and a cloud LLM that decides what to do next.
January 2026
Bluetooth control via cassette adapter, web-based controller, and giving an 80s robot a modern voice.
January 2026
Opening up a 40-year-old robot. Teardown, inspection, and first drive test.
November 2025
Introducing Maker Cities, an NSF-funded program preparing adults for future careers through hands-on maker training.
October 2025
Hosting the Make: Live Stage, supporting 7,500 students, and awarding Blue Ribbons to standout makers.
October 2025
An exhibit of vintage personal computers from my collection, on view October 2025 through February 2026.
April 2025
Reimagining dominos with cultural phrases for O, Miami Poetry Festival.
April 2025
Ten years of robotic poetry with O, Miami. From receipt printers to AI-powered vintage robots.
March 2023
Why to come and what to expect at Miami's annual maker gathering.
March 2023
Volunteering as a judge and meeting incredible robotics teams from Panama, Colombia, Ohio, and Florida.
December 2020
Poetry Robots are original machines to disseminate poems through technology.
December 2020
3D printed shells with hidden Bluetooth speakers playing Ocean Vuong poems on Miami Beach.
May 2020
Poetry projectors illuminating Opa-Locka streets with poems from local students and residents.
February 2020
How our maker community delivered 18,000+ pieces of free PPE during the pandemic.
April 2019
Where the future is now, robots reigned and high-tech dresses impressed.
November 2018
Taking on the Producer role at Maker Faire Miami in 2018, and what I hoped to build next.
August 2018
A friendly bot-in-a-box that prints out a keepsake poem with the press of a button.
January 2018
Visualizing sound vibrations for the Frost Science Museum LATE event.
July 2017
Collaboration across the pond with Docker Captain Alex Ellis on an IoT project.
July 2017
Getting the colors right and finishing BMO for Miami Maker Faire.
March 2017
Documenting the start of my BMO video game unit build for Miami Maker Faire.
Omnibot finds you. A 1984 toy robot, a Raspberry Pi, and a YOLO11 model in a $20 enclosure. Read the build →
Mario the Maker is me, Mario Cruz. I'm a Miami-based technologist, founder, inventor, and musician. I'm the CTO of Watsco Ventures and have been the Executive Producer of Maker Faire Miami since 2014. I build robots, IoT devices, and interactive installations out of Moonlighter FabLab. There's more on the About page.
No. Super Mario Maker is a Nintendo video game, and Mario the Maker Magician is a touring performer from New York. This site belongs to Mario Cruz, a maker in Miami. We just share a good name.
Robots, restorations, and interactive installations. Recent projects include Ring-O, an AI sidekick for a restored 1984 Tomy Omnibot, the Banana Poem Phone, a landline that plays poems when you dial, Wavr, a theremin you play by waving at a webcam, and DrumPulse, an Apple Watch app that counts drumming as a workout. I've also built a decade of Poetry Robots for the O, Miami Poetry Festival.
Miami, Florida. My workshop is at Moonlighter FabLab, a non-profit S.T.E.A.M. learning center with CNC, laser cutting, and 3D printing.
Maker Faire Miami is the annual flagship event for Miami's maker community, produced by Moonlighter FabLab, a 501(c)3 non-profit. I've been its Executive Producer since 2014.
For many of them, yes. The code for the Omnibot's Bluetooth control and AI vision, the Poetry Phone, and Wavr is on GitHub.
Email Mario@MarioTheMaker.com. I've spoken at DockerCon, Jenkins User Conference, DevOps Days, Sime Miami, and Google Startup Grind, and I take on speaking, commissioned installations, and collaborations.
Whether you've got a stage, a problem to solve, or a wild idea, reach out.
Mario@MarioTheMaker.com