Vancouver Mini Maker Faire + Mom = Bliss

Vancouver’s second annual Mini Maker Faire witnessed a sea of smiling faces two weekends ago, as local makers shared, entertained and inspired the city’s hungry minds.

 

Being a volunteer, I was eager to share the experience, so I invited my parents along.

 

There was plenty to see and do — but what first? 3D printer village? Perfume mixing? Soldering? Painting with bikes? Felted beads? Mushboo? Disaster Area?

 

More than 100 makers were busy tinkering, weaving, hacking, playing handmade horns, drawing with robots, and carving faces out of sand.

 

It was a thrill for the senses and a feast for the mind.

 

During a short break, and in between bites of scrumptious pakora, I asked my mom what she thought of the event.

 

“It reminds me of the mentality we had in the 60s and 70s, you know, getting back to the garden,” she mused. “Everybody wanted to make their own things — clothes, macramé, growing their own food, working with leather. Only people would do it in small groups. Nobody would have put an event together like this.”

 

Right on! A gold star from my mom! And she’s right on too. The event is organic. It’s educational. It’s loopy and it’s kooky, but most of all it’s fun. It’s a nerd’s paradise, no matter what kind of nerd you are.

 

As I listened to my mom speak, I looked inside my purse full of little handmade trinkets, some of which I made myself onsite. I felt so inspired.

 

“It’s the beginning of something,” she said. “I’m not sure what exactly. It feels like Circle Craft, deconstructed.”

 

Written by on July 4th, 2012


Lena Ross is a communications officer, writer, volunteer publicist and avid arts and culture enthusiast. When she's not out enjoying live music, inspiring art or locally designed fashion, she spends her spare time thrifting, sewing, promoting the arts, learning photography, and tinkering around on the interwebs.


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Posted in Vancouver Mini Maker Faire 2012, Volunteers |





A Volunteer’s First Maker Faire

What a magical place! My first time at Mini Maker Faire was the overwhelming array of sights, sounds and motions that I had hoped for. The Makerverse was a hustling, bustling assault of the senses.

 

As an early morning volunteer, I headed to the front gate to begin my shift, passing the beginnings of stalls I saw many things that intrigued me: weird shapes protruding, projections screens expanding, messes of criss-crossing wires and circuits, cables being gaffered to the ground and strange objects lifted from boxes.  I wanted to explore, but I knew I had to focus on helping out. I spent the morning volunteering at ticketing, where I saw kids buzzing with excitement; jumping, squirming and smiling ear to ear. It’s good to see that the Maker movement has captured the hearts of those so young.

 

Silver Dog Vancouver Mini Maker Faire

 

When my shift was over, I was finally able to round the door and see what awaited me. Things spun and clicked and rolled and danced before my eyes. There were glowing lights and the whir of a helicopter overhead! Scents emanated from the perfume booth. A long, low, echoing note surprised me from a horn made from a hat. Strings and sculptures dangled. Visual projections warped and altered. Flashes went off from the callotype booth. Here I was, surrounded by making. I felt immersed in the joy of creation and sharing, and I too started to buzz with inspiration. If you are heading to Mini Maker Faire today, here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect to find.

Written by on June 24th, 2012


Hannah Miller is an online content producer and transmedia storyteller. She likes to tell the quirky stories of everyday people and is into documenting with photography, video, audio, writing and zines. She takes photos with the kind of cameras that confuse people when she stops to wind on the film.


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Posted in Vancouver Mini Maker Faire 2012, Volunteers |





Meet Your Makers: The Robots of Dan Royer

 

Hannah Miller interviewed Dan Royer

 

 

Dan Royer is coming to VMMF 2012 with a robot entourage. In this video, he talks about the moment he realised he needed something more fulfilling to dedicate himself to – and why robots are it for him.

 

 

 

 

What’s the first thing you can remember making earlier in life?

 

The first popular moving device that I made was a small mechano rotary fan that looked like a scale model of a windmill that I brought into the portables at my grade school in grade 5 or 6. I was the only kid who had a fan in this blistering hot little sweat box so I was quite popular. It was one of the few times that I was!

 

 

What is it like to be part of the Maker community at Vancouver Hack Space?

 

There are definitely minds here that think differently from mine. The projects that I work on tend to be big and complicated and they take a long time and a lot of patience. I see some people here who come up with simple things that can be done in minutes, that are beautiful to look at and just the concept alone – everyone gets it right off the bat. I just go, wow, because I don’t think that way. I’m so focussed on my goal and there was this beautiful thing off to the side and I wouldn’t have seen it, even if I was looking at it.

 

 

Since this is your second Vancouver Mini Maker Faire, what can we expect this weekend?

 

As a maker, expect to be standing on your feet for two days, expect to lose your voice, bring your water and your lunch prefaced and you will be smiling from ear to ear the entire time.

As a person who is visiting the Faire, pretty much the same thing. The few times I took a break and said watch my table I’m going to go around, I was just…I didn’t know where to look next, I was all over the place! There was a giant crab that walked. There was a woman making glass beads outside and you could participate and make your own glass marbles. There were paper planes that were flying around. There were all kinds of things that were lit up and moving that responded. There were sounds. There was some kind of thing you danced in front of and on a screen it showed you dancing there, but it was funky technology changed around…I don’t know how to put it. There were people with CNC machines – there’s a whole 3D printer village this year! Last year there were two 3D printers and a laser cutter. It’s grown enormously and it’s just going to be fantastic. I expect to be thoroughly awed.

 

 

 

Written by on June 23rd, 2012


Hannah Miller is an online content producer and transmedia storyteller. She likes to tell the quirky stories of everyday people and is into documenting with photography, video, audio, writing and zines. She takes photos with the kind of cameras that confuse people when she stops to wind on the film.


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Posted in Meet your Makers |





Vancouver Mini Maker Faire is happening Today and Tomorrow!

Come on down to the PNE Forum for some fun times! The event will be happening from 10-6 on both Saturday and Sunday.

Written by on June 23rd, 2012


Emily is a Communication Designer, illustrator, crafter, founder of Maker Foundation and Creative Director of Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. She is an avid textile artist and community organizer with a focus on facilitating collaborative and creative workspaces, teaching workshops, and organizing crafty and creative events. She enjoys foraging for unlikely materials, increasing bicycle safety and visibility, and becoming more self-sufficient while lowering her carbon footprint. Check out her blog at bluemollusc.com


Posted in Event Details |





Meet Your Makers: Barry Shell of Perfumes by Hido

 

Hannah Miller interviewed perfumer Barry Shell.

 

Barry Shell Amateur Perfumer

 

A organic chemist turned perfumery hobbyist, Barry Shell will be bringing his extensive collection of natural essential oils and other odorous compounds to VMMF. Barry introduced me to olfactory stimuli I’d never even heard of, let alone smelt – including something made from whale poop! Look for his booth this weekend so that you can make your own custom perfume sample, instead of just listening to me smell mine in the clip below.

 

 

One final question: Is there a scent that you wish you could bottle?

 

Sure, there’s tonnes of them. You know when you go on a hot summer day to a lake in the mountains and the rocks and the moss are sort of baking in the sun…you know, that smell.

 

 

If you’re interested in Barry’s comments about our inability to digitise smell, he’s written a great article on it here.

 

Written by on June 22nd, 2012


Hannah Miller is an online content producer and transmedia storyteller. She likes to tell the quirky stories of everyday people and is into documenting with photography, video, audio, writing and zines. She takes photos with the kind of cameras that confuse people when she stops to wind on the film.


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Posted in Meet your Makers |





Meet Your Sponsor: The Hackery

The Hackery was most gracious to come on board as a community sponosor again for this year’s Maker Faire. The Hackery, located on the a block north of  East Hastings on Victoria Drive, is a fantastic tech shop that repairs, recycles, re-purposes and re-sells computers and electronics. These services have expanded beyond just catering to Vancouver. Their highly active online eBay store has since become an integral part in the international electronics collector community.

 

When you walk into The Hackery, the first thing you will notice is the diversity of equipment they have on their shelves. From Commodore PET computers, to vintage radios, to even one of the first fax machines, they have all kinds of wonders you could just oggle at for hours. Aside from their thriving online business, they have all kinds of walk-in customers: people looking for laptop replacement parts salvaged from their scrapyard, people interested in recycling electronics (which they spend the time to fully dismantle for usable parts, before sending true end of life material to audited material handlers and refineries), and in my case, electronics for one of my Maker projects!

 

David Repa, The Hackery’s founder and owner, was kind enough to walk me through their back area where they do their repairs. At one table, a monitor repair was being diagnosed by a DIY tool that could determine whether a capacitor was blown without removing the capacitor from the board. At another table was a diagnostics computer whose own innards hung down from a wooden beam above the workbench. I also got a demo on how one turned it on, you woud have to hot wire the thing. Awesome!

 

David also co-founded Free Geek Vancouver, and rented the upstairs of The Hackery to the founding members of the Vancouver Hackspace, one of our sister organizations, making him deeply ingrained in the DIY community here in Vancouver. He really does know how to hack in Vancouver, and his scrap yard is no exception. The ‘Scrap Yard’, a garage filled with computers and other electronics waiting to be sold, repaired, recycled, or cannibalized, was massive! Stacked with laptops, flats of Apple IIs (and all of it’s periphreals), bins of components and boards, and a self-repaired forklift. They even have their own in-house metal waste compactor (DIY’d no less!).

In a time where throwaway culture is becoming more and more prevalent, the value of The Hackery’s venture cannot be understated. They fight through the flood of disposability and find the gems, find the salvageable, and help people continue to use electronics free of guilt knowing that they have a proper ethical recycling facility at The Hackery when it is needed.

 

The Vancouver Maker/Hacker community is extremely lucky to have a space like The Hackery. Their warm, friendly, and open nature is very approachable and even my brief time interviewing them has left me with all sorts of ideas and inspiration for my next DIY project. I recommend stopping by, chatting with their staff, as there is all kinds of great things you could learn. Thanks again David, you guys are great!

 

You should follow The Hackery on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

 

Written by on June 22nd, 2012


Vincent van Haaff (http://flyingoctopus.net) is a multi-disciplinary media artist working with computer code to explore virtual and real spaces defined by rule-based systems. Originally from Southern California, he went from a record label co-founder and audio hacker in Los Angeles to a environmental club founder in Santa Barbara before moving to Vancouver to become a software developer and media artist. His expertise spans from data and music visualization to computer vision, event and community installation, and user centred design.


Posted in Uncategorized |





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