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Wednesday September 28, 2016

Fall is a busy time for makers. We've got plenty of Maker Faires happening, new books coming out, and a new community projects platform for makers to share what they've made with others. It's a time to get inspired to start your own Fall project.

World Maker Faire and Other Faires Around the World   In our seventh year in New York, World Maker Faire (this weekend!) showcases the best of the maker movement, whether through up‒and‒coming makers, new fields, or updates on popular topics. This year we're seeing how the maker mindset is being applied to disaster zone response and humanitarian efforts, and making a difference where it really counts.   All of the World Maker Faire 2016 presentations, speakers, stages, and schedules can be found here. Highlights of the program include:

Bioengineering — A fascinating look at what the future holds, this area shines a spotlight on new technologies in the realm of neuroscience, DIY biology, bio security, tissue engineering, and more.

●  Making & the DIY Bio Frontier ●  The Accessible Future of Neuroscience ●  Surgical 3D Printing and Tissue Engineering

Making for Good — These are inspiring examples of how makers are designing tools and solutions to bring meaningful change to refugee camps, disaster relief efforts, developing countries, and U.S. cities where smart solutions are needed.

●  Making for Good — An International Perspective ●  Green Bronx Machine Pop-Up Farm

Maker Ingenuity — These are presentations that will jumpstart you (or your project), featuring updates, how-tos, new thinking, enlightenment, and more.

●  The MacGyver Secret with Lee Zlotoff, creator of MacGyver ●  The Shifting Landscape of the Internet of Things ●  Making Things Talk with Tom Igoe, co-founder of the Arduino Project

Making in Education — Leaders in maker curriculum and hands-on learning will share the latest strategies for making in the classroom, from kindergarten to grad school.

●  Today's Makers are Tomorrow's Movers & Shakers ●  Models for Launching a High School Makerspace ●  Makerspaces in Your School, Community, Garage, & Beyond

And remember, your participation is what makes Maker Faire so special, so mark your calendar, tell your friends, and come be a part of Maker Faire this weekend.

Join us at Maker Faire

If you can't make it to New York, there are Maker Faires this weekend also in Berlin, Atlanta, San Diego, Athens, Bogotá, and Galicia. Also, in October, Maker Faires take place in Rome, Shenzhen, Ottawa, Orlando, and many other cities. See the Maker Faire map for a complete listing.

Free to Make by Dale Dougherty and Ariane Conrad   Today, my new book Free to Make is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In Free to Make, published by North Atlantic Books, I write about the maker movement and tell the stories of makers who are changing how we make things, where we make things, what we are able to make, and who gets to make things. I tried to capture how making is a form of personal expression, combining our ability to learn, use tools, and realize our dreams to create things that never existed before.   Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Nobody needs to make anything today. Necessity is no longer the mother of all invention. We can find almost everything we need and buy it, more easily and more cheaply than ever before. And just as easily, we throw away those things.   Yet today many people are making what they need, and there are more of them than I ever imagined when I first called them out as “makers.” What — or rather who — is a maker? Makers are producers and creators, builders and shapers of the world around us. Makers are people who regard technology as an invitation to explore and experiment, with the most inclusive possible definition of technology, meaning any skill or technique that we learn and employ. What we once called hobbyists, tinkerers, artists, inventors, engineers, crafters — all of them are makers. The power of “maker” as a new term lies in its broad application, its sense of inclusiveness, and its lack of close alignment with a particular field or interest area, so people are free to claim the identity for themselves.   Makers share a mind-set, and that's why the Maker Movement has emerged as a global countercultural phenomenon, inviting everyone to join in and make something.

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Portland Mini Maker Faire   At the Portland Mini Maker Faire, which was held Sept 10–11 at OMSI, I was struck by how many low-tech DIY skills were on display. Pottery, soapmaking, theater prop making, and leather making. One type of jewelry making demonstrated by Michelle Verheyden was cuttlebone casting, carving a two-sided mold from the shell of the cuttlebone fish and then pouring metal into the mold. Michael Hendricks, a member of Olymega makerspace in Olympia, Washington, demonstrated a project he called HydroRam. He wanted to be able to move water from his above-ground pool up to the roof where his solar panels would heat it. He devised a prototype that uses the kinetic energy of falling water to provide a way to pump water vertically, without electricity. A group from Seattle called Makerologist created an alphabet board draped with Christmas tree lights and controlled by multiple Arduino 101s to pay homage to the Netflix series Stranger Things.   The most beautiful thing I saw was Stoicheia by Lumina Lab, a “stained glass” LED hanging sculpture designed by Lilli Szafranski. It has thousands of LEDs inside which are programmed so as to never repeat the same effect.

#FutureOfCooking Hackathon at FirstBuild   Over 200 people showed up at FirstBuild in Louisville, Kentucky last weekend to participate in a 36-hour hackathon focused around hacking appliances. FirstBuild is an makerspace open to the public but dedicated to promoting innovation in household appliances. The event was a wonderful mix of makers, engineers from GE Appliances, and students from colleges such as Rose-Hulman, Georgia Tech, Columbus College of Art & Design, and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. A team from Inventables came from Chicago and while they work for the same company, they don't work in the same departments.   Steve Penrod and Joshua Montgomery from Lawrence, Kansas contributed an open-source, voice-activated device that they call Mycroft. A user could ask questions of the cooktop — “Is there a pan on the stovetop?” — or turn the heat on or off using their voice. But the winning team was Marco, an induction stovetop for the visually impaired. The cooktop had recessed circles to indicate where pans were to be placed. Three industrial design students from the Columbus College of Art and Design designed the stovetop and added braille identifiers to the manual controls. The Marco team won the top prize of $3,000.

Share on Make: Community Projects   In partnership with Hackster.io, we now have the Make: Community Projects platform on makezine.com. It's a place where you can share your own project with the community. We'll be using the platform to find projects for the magazine, host maker challenges, and offer contests like our upcoming Halloween contest.   Editor Caleb Craft explains how to get started: http://makezine.com/2016/09/08/share-your-project/     Visit Make: Community Projects     Special thanks to Adam Benzion and Benjamin Larralde of Hackster for working with us.   I hope to see you at World Maker Faire this weekend. I'd love to autograph your copy of Free to Make.

@dalepd   Dale Dougherty Founder and CEO, Make:

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