The world’s largest Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Festival is Maker Faire. It is a two-day, family-friendly event to make, create, learn, invent, craft, recycle, think, play and be inspired by celebrating arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, science and technology.
Since President Obama called on Americans to ”begin again the work of remaking America,” the 2009 Faire was organized around the theme of Re-Make America.
The 4th annual Faire was held last month in the San Francisco Bay Area to showcase individual creativity and grassroots innovation.
Maker Faire is an event created by Make Magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset.”
The first Faire was held April 22 – 23, 2006 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. It included 6 exposition & workshop pavilions, a 5-acre outdoor midway, over 100 exhibiting Makers, hands-on workshops, demonstrations and DIY competitions.
I wrote elsewhere about the idea of teachers and students as makers. The OER Commons project (open Educational Resources) and ISKME (The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education) launched an open-source curriculum competition called the Sun Curve Design Challenge.
What is the challenge? If you had to grow your food using efficient and sustainable processes, where would it take you? What science and technology could support your ideas? They used the Maker Faire to launch the project. Green tech inventor and sculptor, Paul Giacomantonio of INKA, first sketched the Sun Curve. It’s a a self-contained hydroponic laboratory. The Challenge recasts teachers and students as collaborative “makers” of curriculum and media. At the San Mateo Fairgrounds, teachers and students got to see makers at work.
80,000 visitors were expected for Maker Faire.
