Kenneth Marx made his first chess set from discarded spark plugs when he was a college student working at a gas station. Now retired, Marx has returned to his hobby and you can buy his custom creations here for $275 each.

Most people bury their pets when they die, but not Dutch artist Bart Jansen. He decided that a better send off for his late kitty Orville, was to give him a bird's-eye view of the world by turning him into the world's first feline quadrotor helicopter.

This weekend, we headed out to San Mateo, CA to check out the 2012 edition of Maker Faire, the giant festival where weird and cool people show off their weird and cool stuff. As you look through the gallery below, you might catch yourself wondering what the point of some of these projects are. Try not to waste too much time attempting to figure it out, since a lot what you'll see at Maker Faire only exists because someone with the right mix of creativity, talent and free time thought that it should. If you don't live around San Francisco, there are Maker Faires and Mini Maker Faires all over the world. Odds are, you can find one near you, just check out this handy map to see where and when you can go see some of these things for yourself.

Iron Man is frequently paid tribute by skilled costume makers (exhibits A, B and C) — some who, like Mark Pearson, may have never known they had a little Stark in them. Maybe that's because, as Pearson says: "…I like the fact that he is not really a superhero, he is just a man with a flying suit… But what a suit — it's the Ferrari of superhero suits."