Portland’s First Maker Faire

Portland’s First Maker Faire

Steampunk creations, crafts, Raspberry Pi, educational kits, learn to solder areas, trebuchets, 3D printers and food trucks were among the featured exhibits at the Portland Mini Maker Faire, which was held Saturday and Sunday, September 15 and 16, 2012 at OMSI. Portland is a city that embraces DIY culture and so we’ve long anticipated having Maker Faire become part of the Portland scene. I was glad to be on hand for the inaugural event.

[make_slideshow slug=”portlands-first-maker-faire” title=”Portland’s First Maker Faire” link=”Start the Slideshow”]

44 thoughts on “Portland’s First Maker Faire

  1. Jake Spurlock says:

    Great slideshow!

  2. James T. Jordan says:

    There are 14 states with cities named Portland: Maine, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, North Dakota, Indiana, Connecticut, Michigan, Arkansas, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, and Kentucky. There is also a Portlandville in New York, and a Portland Mills in Pennsylvania. You might consider putting the state as well in the story header.

    1. Zadaz says:

      Seeing as you had to look those up on Wikipedia and that the vast majority of people have never heard of the rest of these, I think we can let this one slide. In fact totaling the population of the other 13 Portlands sums to less than 1/10th the population of Portland Oregon.

      However I wouldn’t let that stop all the other Portlands (including the two in Australia, and the ones in Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. And any on other plantes) from starting Mini Maker Faires. I welcome the confusion.

      1. Matcha says:

        One of the best Internet replies I’ve ever witnessed.

      2. Rich Beatty says:

        Brilliant response! Kudos

      3. James T. Jordan says:

        well since I live near the one in Maine, I was very excited to hear about maker fair activity near my home town. only to be very dissapointed to find that the author was talking about portland oregon. I think portnald oregon residents often totally forget that they are not the only portland in the world. Speaking of wich if there are any Maine makers out there we need to have an upper new england event!

  3. RavMedia says:

    Very good slideshow, thank you for it !

  4. rayceeya says:

    Seriously!?!

    I check this blog almost every day and I find out about this mere hours after it’s over.

    Way to get the word out.

    1. rayceeya says:

      Obviously Make has no love for Oregon.

    2. ka1axy says:

      Pretty much the same thing happens to me with auroras (northern lights). I either find out how great they were the day afterwards, or, on the rare occasions I find out in time to go out and look, it’s either cloudy or raining.

      But yes, Make, why not create a small “upcoming Make events” box on the main page?

      1. Jake Spurlock says:

        That’s a great idea to have it on the homepage of MAKE, we do have it on the home page of Maker Faire. Check out the full list of Maker Faires here: http://makerfaire.com/map.html

    3. Chris says:

      From what I could tell, OMSI didn’t publicize that they were even looking for makers until late July/early August. They did very little publicizing so my guess was they were in a rush to make the event happen (maybe before World Maker Faire?).

      Talking with a few of the makers, they would have much rather paid a fee for their booth (this year was $0) in order to have a lower ticket price at the door ($12 for adults).

      Hopefully OMSI gets the feedback they need to make next year’s event much better.

    4. Marc says:

      Agreed!
      On Sunday 16 Sept I was sitting @home alone working out how to get two Raspberry Pi’s to talk with each other, when I could have been at a makerfaire at Omsi.

    5. Sabrina Merlo says:

      rayceeya: We did have a couple of posts leading up to the event, and sorry that you missed them:
      SEPT 7 — MINI MAKER FAIRE ACTION _ A new column that we will run every other Wednesday to share the news on upcoming faires and active call for makers.
      http://bit.ly/QAorxz

      SEPT 11
      http://bit.ly/SdRyG6

      SEPT 15
      http://bit.ly/RpZkSN

      This was Portland’s first year and it came together in a relatively short amount of time. We are looking forward to OMSI growing this Portland (OREGON!) Mini Maker Faire this as an annual event.

  5. Dorkbot PDX at Portland Mini Maker Faire | ShareBrained Technology says:

    […] our projects at the Portland Mini Maker Faire. It’s no surprise that half the photos in this photo gallery are of Dork projects! Where else can you find people who are into beekeeping, rocketry, […]

  6. Stefan Jones says:

    The lead time was sufficient to allow Oregon Rocketry to get a booth together, and from what I was able to see of the show there was a pretty good selection of exhibitors.

    However, it was really by chance that I found out about the Mini Faire. Every Mini Faire should be announced to the MAKE newsletter mailing list, and have a makezine.com blog post.

  7. MAKE | Mini Maker Faire Action: Pittsburgh, Albuquerque, Vermont, Columbus, Portland…and New York! says:

    […] Shed and I were able to participate at the very first Portland Mini Maker Faire.  Dale did a great photo roundup already, but I thought I would share mine as well. WP_SLIDESHOW_IMAGES = { load: […]

  8. ○DIY/Tip▶ Mini Maker Faire Action: Pittsburgh, Albuquerque, Vermont, Columbus, Portland…and New York! « dot dot dob tob tob says:

    […] Shed and I were able to participate at the very first Portland Mini Maker Faire.  Dale did a great photo roundup already, but I thought I would share mine as […]

  9. Mini Maker Faire Action: Pittsburgh, Albuquerque, Vermont, Columbus, Portland…and New York! says:

    […] Shed and I were able to participate at the very first Portland Mini Maker Faire.  Dale did a great photo roundup already, but I thought I would share mine as […]

  10. Scott MacHaffie says:

    The mini-maker faire was great! All four of us (me, my wife, and two boys) had a great time.

    I put together a writeup for each day:

    http://scottmachaffie.com/articles/?p=52

    http://scottmachaffie.com/articles/?p=53

  11. Criminal Crafts | outlaw projects for scoundrels and armchair detectives says:

    […] Oh man the Portland Mini Maker Faire at OMSI was so much fun, I’m only just beginning to recover, that and my bail money finally came through.  The number of cool things to see and do was astounding from indie computer games, 3-D printed toys, the 30 foot trebuchet, fractal designed copper furniture and chocolates you could shape yourself into exotic flowers. I spent a good portion of the weekend ducking arrows coming over the top of the Tracker’s booth, thank goodness they’d replaced the steel tips with sponges!  Wire’s Geek Dad blog has a great re-cap of the Faire  and Dale Dougherty founder of Make Magazine and Craft, and the brain child of Maker Faire gatherings was also in attendance, his blog post is here . […]

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DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

View more articles by Dale Dougherty

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