Walking in a Maker Wonderland: Makerland Day 1

Walking in a Maker Wonderland: Makerland Day 1

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The first day of Makerland, a new European maker conference, began with informative and inspirational talks from makers and maker pros such as Daniel Friedman of Ninja BlocksKate Drane of Indiegogo, artist and co-founder of New American Public Art Kawandeep Virdee, Raspberry Pi Foundation Creative Producer Rachel Rayns, and Tindie founder Emile Petrone.

After the talks, attendees spent the afternoon moving through any of 16 asynchronous workshop sessions building everything from RFID doorlocks to underwater robots. The twitter wall projected in the main workshop area showed the excitement of attendees as they spent the afternoon learning and building.

Since there is no way to attend all the workshops, the Makerland organizers created a fantastic book with all the workshop instructions! Each attendee received a printed and bound copy, and you can download the tutorials on the Makerland website.

As I walked through the workshop area, almost every seat was full – attendees were learning and building together, which you can see in the slideshow below.

Day 2 of Makerland holds even more talks from makers and maker pros – and another afternoon of workshops. I’ll be hosting the “Hacking Your Community and Your Career” workshop, which will be the first time we’ve publicly shared the (early) results from our Maker Personality & Skills Assessment, and our tips on using your strengths to improve your community & career.  You can follow the action in realtime on Twitter with hashtag #makerland. If you are an attendee, I’d love to hear what you are planning to make for the hackathon on day 3 – post in the comments below or stop by during my workshop!

My first public workshop sharing the (early) results of our maker research and tips for improving your community and your career.

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Ian is a co-founder of The Maker Effect Foundation, a non-profit group organized to amplify the effects of makers within their communities. The Maker Effect Foundation's programs include Maker Faire Orlando, and MakerFX makerspace in Orlando. Ian is also a board member of Nation of Makers, and a member of FamiLAB, Orlando's Hackerspace.

View more articles by Ian Cole

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