2012 UC Mini Maker Faire Planning Underway and New Site

Mark your calendars! The 2012 Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Faire is coming Saturday, April 14. We'll be at the Independent Media Center again this year with new makers and great demos. The event will be from 10am to 4pm, so don't miss out.

Find out more at our new site at ucmakerfaire.com

If you're interested in hosting a maker booth, contact Sarah Dolinar at sarahdolinar@gmail.com.

Mini Maker Faire was a HUGE success!

Take a minute to "like" us Facebook to see the awesome photos and see what a glimpse of what we're planning for next time around!

http://tinyurl.com/ucmmf

See you next year!!

Don't miss out! Maker Faire is tomorrow!

Here's the list of Makers....


Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign
Things you never knew you could make with extra bike parts.

Central Illinois Aerospace
Model rocketry…how can you pass up that?

CMKT 4
Making electronic musical instruments.

Costume Closet of the Independent Media Center
Learn some handy and creative sewing and crafting techniques.

Deconstruction Zone
The place where kids are actually allowed to take apart the toaster to see how it works!

FabLab
See how you can use a vinyl cutterto make stickers and a mini-mill to make your own circuit boards.

The I.D.E.A. Store
Help fold miles and miles of paper chains for a community art project.

MakerSpace Urbana
Robots. Micro-controllers. Soldering Irons. Do we really need to keep going?

Mathematical Paper Art with Jonathan Manton
Designing and creating mathematical paper art.

ODDMUSIC Urbana-Champaign
Combine microtonality, computer programming, and instrument building to see what odd music you can make.

Radical Librarians
How to start your own zine and create your own book.

School for Designing a Society
An ongoing experiment that asks the question,
“What would I consider a desirable society?”

Stewart Dickson
Finding ways to marvel us with engineering science!

Your project is awesome

During the process of planning this Mini Maker Faire, particularly in finding

people to have booths, do demos, and so on, I've talked to quite a few makers.

It has really been amazing, and I've had a chance to go deep on blinking lights,

discuss the finer points of micro-controller design, argue about the importance

of tool-chains, and generally geek out at people's projects. I have learned

there are quite a few really cool projects out there, (and I'm pretty sure this

means there are even more waiting to be found). All these things are pretty

cutting-edge, high-tech, making from brilliant makers. I'm sure then, that you

can understand my confusion (and I'll admit it: frustration) when people say

"Oh, my project is not really booth-worthy".

On the surface this is a really befuddling phenomenon -- for example: how could

someone not realize that creating a brand new electronic instrument from

scratch is an amazing feat? I once talked to a guy making a quad-copter who

said "it's really nothing special, there are much better designs out there". I

think there is clue to the problem in that statement. It is easy to get lost in

the [web distortion field](http://www.ericsink.com/articles/Boundaries.html).

People see pages of plans, videos of results, and articles praising those who

have done similar projects, particularly within communities of makers. They

assume that at this point what they are doing is no big deal, because (to quote

the song) "it's all been done before". This is understandable really, when you

look at the internet you see communities devoted to everything.

Enthusiasts can collect and share their accomplishments. This has

amazing results -- rapid iterations of plans result in new, complex, projects

happening faster than ever. Unfortunately though, it seems to promote this odd,

myopic view, where people judge their results against the state of affairs in

the community. By doing this, they miss (or forget) just how cool their

accomplishments are.

In one sense, this is just modesty on the part of the makers -- they know of

something cooler and admit it. In another sense, (the Maker Faire sense), this

myopic view can be a bit damaging. The point of the Faire is to present new

stuff to people who have never encountered it before. Just because yours is the

400th frobulator rather than the first, doesn't change one important fact: it's

really freaking awesome. It may not make the front-page of frobulator weekly,

but it is also way cooler than any solder-by-numbers kit. Even more

importantly: outside of the frobulation community, almost no one has heard of

your frobulators -- even if they would be really interested. People sometimes

just need opportunity and exposure to new thing. This is what we at UC Mini

Maker Faire consider the true heart of these gatherings: community building and

recruiting. This is why we want you to show off your "not-so-great" project at

a booth. It grows your community, enriches the maker scene, and brings us all

together as a result.

Have a project? What are you waiting for? Get a booth today! Email

ucmakerfaire@gmail.com if you are interested in having a booth, demo, or talk

at the Faire!

Ramping up...

With the inaugural Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Fair just under a month away---APRIL 16!!---we have begun a serious ramp-up of activities. We also have made a renewed commitment to keep our friends, fans and followers in the loop, by posting here on our blog and to Facebook and even tweeting.  To begin this renewed public activity, we want to tell you what we've been doing the last few weeks.

Location and Space:

The location for the first UC Mini Maker Faire is the Independent Media Center in downtown Urbana, Illinois. This building was originally a post office, and today is a pretty cool community space. It has room for maker booths, demonstrations, and general mingling. The IMC building is also home to Makerspace Urbana -- one of the our host organizations (tours of their space will be happening the whole day, and probably some sort of hands-on workshop too). More details about the space and setup will be posted as we get them!

Official Endorsement from Maker Faire Headquarters:

We'd hoped to do a lot more publicity, but our official endorsement and permission from O'Reilly (the publisher of Make and Craft magazines) to use the Mini Maker Faire name took a while longer than we hoped. The wait has paid off -- we are an officially sanctioned event!. This is pretty cool as it marks us as recognized participants in a greater community of Maker Faires and Makers!

Maker Recruitment:

We have (and still are) recruited local makers, and we're looking forward to a fantastic event. There is a lot of work to do yet, but the real challenge is not getting caught up in all the projects people are doing.  All of us committee members are Makers, too, so examining cool projects can distracting. Another exciting consequence of the selection process: it has made us aware of a much bigger local maker community than we previously imagined.

Speaking of the community -- if you or your friends are Makers, and want to be involved let us know, it isn't too late to participate either as a volunteer or potentially even find booths! Email us at ucmakerfaire@gmail.com.

Sponsorship:

We have some dedicated sponsors and we are actively seeking some more. There are various sponsorship packages available, and if you or your organization would like to sponsor this event, please email us at ucmakerfaire@gmail.com, and we'll work with you!

UC Mini Maker Faire

April 16, 2011

10am to 3pm

See you there!

Let's get this thing going!

Welcome to the information blog for the 2011 UC Mini-Maker Faire!

We are looking for Makers and Sponsors. If you're interested in hosting a booth and showing off your talents, email us: sarahdolinar@gmail.com or bcdugga@gmail.com.