Maker Ed at the World Maker Faire: Highlights

October 4, 2012, by Steve Davee

The Maker Ed team is absolutely fired up about our experiences at the World Maker Faire this past weekend. I’d like to share a few highlights of this wonderful event. It’s certainly difficult to do it justice with words. Fortunately, pictures of children, parents and educators go a long way towards illustrating the incredible energy and excitement of the World Maker Faire.

Education Day

On Friday, students and educators from the region were invited for an early preview of the Faire. This was our chance to meet with teachers and makers as well. I had a great time taking photos and videos in an attempt to capture the excitement and engagement of the day. The power of this meeting of making and education is evident in the faces of both the students and makers in these photos.

In the evening, Maker Ed and NYSCI’s Makerspace hosted a meetup of educators to further connect makers with educators from a wide variety of settings.

Maker Ed Executive Director AnnMarie Thomas and Director of Operations & Development Paloma Garcia-Lopez greeting educators.

Maker Ed Cafe

Under the Cognizant Young Makers Pavilion, Maker Ed hosted presenters, panels, workshops,discussions, and a place to meet and converse about making and education. The following is a sample of the activity and programming in the Education Cafe.

Young Makers, Q&A: Kickstarter and Projects For Young Makers, BOXES with Parsons The New School for Design, Larchmont Young Makers

Clockwise from upper left:

arduino for education, Remix Fashion, Short Circuits: Crafting with DIY Electronics, modeling a paper airplane design and supply chain

Clockwise from upper left:

If you can count to two, you can hook up a circuit, young makers exploring circuits, Hackerspaces and Engineering Schools, C3 Citizen STEM

Parenting Young Makers, Printmaking: Simple Materials… Complex Thought, Building Communities to Support Young Makers, Discussion: Funding Your Young Makers Project

Questions & many answers

Clockwise from upper left: The future of making is bright: Meet the Young Makers, Our Cognizant Making the Future Neighbors, Maker Ed Board Members, Hydroponics workshop with Cognizant’s Making the Future education initiative.

Special thanks to David Wells and the fantastic staff of NYSCI for all of their help with Maker Ed and the Faire. This printmaking workshop by David and his NYSCI colleague Janella Watson was so popular that we kept it going long past it’s scheduled time.

I have missed more than a few of our wonderful makers that contributed to such a successful and enlightening Education Cafe. Our complete program can be found here.

Many thanks to all who attended and contributed to our Maker Ed Cafe programming!

Personally, the most important thing I have taken away from the Faire is a sense of the incredible energy and excitement about making and education. For all of us at Maker Ed, we look forward to building on this excitement, strengthening the connections we made, and acting on the wonderful inspirations we encountered at every turn. Please join us, and stay in touch!

Inspired by the Faire? Please feel free to contact me at Steve@MakerEd.org to share your stories of inspiration, suggestions for further blog coverage, and feedback regarding the Education Cafe.