UK Maker Faire Newcastle 2010

[NovaOne]

March 13-14.

http://www.makerfaire.com/newcastle/2010/

Over 7000 varied visitors last year!

At Maker Faire, technology meets art, science meets fashion, engineering meets crafting and that's just the tip of the iceberg. This DIY festival features cool robots, clever gadgets, garden shed inventions, knitted wonders, renegade fashions, cars

How can any one NOT want to go to this???? Hope to see some of you there?

[Orac]

Yes indeed, missed this last year, going to make a big effort to attend this year

[limor]

I've sent them an email about participating with a booth and also getting RoboSavvy logo on their front page

Can anyone who has been there last year shed some light about the effectiveness of having a booth there?

[limor]

The event is a non-profit one and last year there were 7000 people who attended.
I've talked to the organizers and they are very interested in having a humanoid robot event.

We are thinking of maybe having a workshop of some kind where people can experience working with robots

Please post ideas on this thread

[NovaOne]

Sorry for financial reasons I will be unable to attend this one.

[Orac]

Thats a shame, I'll have to take my own photos and videos now

Limor,

I could bring along Sir Kitt and put on a bit of a demo.

[limor]

I'm afraid that we won't be able to participate.
If there those interested in doing something at the fair like a humanoid robot demonstration or a robot workshop please let me know.

[tempusmaster]

If the UK Maker Faire is anything like the one here in Tokyo, it will be well worth the effort to participate in some way. I was part of the Tokyo Hackerspace exhibit for Make Tokyo Meeting 04 http://jp.makezine.com/blog/2009/11/mtm04.html, and the interest in robotics was extremely strong, with humanoids drawing a lot of attention. Quite a few of the makers were showing off their robot creations.

Attendance at the Japan events has doubled each time they are held (every six months) to the point that they are struggling to find bigger and bigger venues.

[Orac]

Hi Limor,

Did you have a space reserved?

I was hoping to take my Manoi up there but it seems it would be classed as a proposal, for which the deadline would have been the 11th Dec

Hope it takes off like the Japanese event.

Orac

[i-Bot]

I too was planning to go, but am also rather put off whole entry process and growing cliquishness of UK event. Not sure if it is worth the trip.

Have tried to stir the pot on another forum: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaB ... 1258396176

Cheers,
Richard

[tempusmaster]

I too was planning to go, but am also rather put off whole entry process and growing cliquishness of UK event. Not sure if it is worth the trip.

Have tried to stir the pot on another forum: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaB ... 1258396176

Cheers,
Richard

I think the entry process is their way of keeping things manageable with people gathered together with one point of contact to deal with, especially with the phenomenal growth and interest. Most of the 'individual' makers here aligned themselves with a group - in my case it was Tokyo Hackerspace.

[tempusmaster]

I too was planning to go, but am also rather put off whole entry process and growing cliquishness of UK event. Not sure if it is worth the trip.

Have tried to stir the pot on another forum: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaB ... 1258396176

Cheers,
Richard

Here's one of the posts I did about the Make Tokyo event robots. The video only shows a small fraction of the robots that participated. There were a couple ROBO-ONE builders, and of course the Makerbot guys from Fukuoka that are also top ROBO-ONE competitors.

[limor]

I was in touch with the event organizer and she was willing to do 2 things; provide a table to do a robotics workshop, and possibly provide a stage to do some performance or competition.
However, I didn't see an overwhelming response here of at least say 5 enthusiasts (and also we are extremely busy these days after the BETT show) hence I told the organizers that we wont take the generous offer this time. I guess there would be more people enthusiastic to go if if the weather was better and location was more central.
If there is a quorum of enthusiasts that would like to go then I'll be happy to pass along the contact.

[Orac]

Thanks,

If anyone is able to attend and bring something along, PM me and we'll see how much interest we get.

To make it viable, we would need to have enough people interested to man a table for the entire event.

I don't mind doing it on my own if I have to, after all, I do have 12 sets of LIPOs hanging about

[Orac]

Hi all, its a go !!

We have an area booked for the UK Maker Faire in Newcastle and I have paid for my hotel room, so come rain, hail or shine we will have a manned booth for the weekend.

Let me know if you can come along, the more that attend, the better the spectacle for the visitors.

Even if you can only come for one day, or are a lurking visitor eager to see these robots in action, you are most welcome.

I will be travelling up from Oxford on Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday evening, and can fit 1 more person in the car if anyone needs a lift.

Have a look at the website, there were over 7000 guests last year, as well as wide media coverage. I think the flavour of the event meshes well with Humanoid robotics and could be generate some real interest in our hobby.

http://makerfaire.com/newcastle/2010/

Pete