Exciting lineup of talks and demos at Maker Faire

Check out the full schedule of presentations and demos for this weekend’s Maker Faire. I’m happy to have such a wide range of speakers on a variety of topics.

There are three stages: Stage A is in Fiesta Hall used for short talks; Stage B is a smaller stage in Fiesta for workshops; Stage C in Expo Hall has a mix of panels and talks. (In addition, a full slate of Craft Demos will take place in Expo Hall and Make Demos will happen in Fiesta in the Maker Shed area.)

Here are some of the highlights:

Adam Savage returns to Maker Faire again where he had a standing-room only audience last year. This year, he will talk about “Colossal Failures” on Saturday from 2 pm to 3pm in Stage A.

Remaking American Manufacturing is one of themes to be addressed by speakers this Saturday at Maker Faire. Liam Casey who works in Zhenzhen, China helps American companies utiltize the Chinese manufacturing system. Liam believes that this unique system of manufacturing will increasingly become available for individual makers. His talk, “Getting Out of the Garage” will be Saturday at noon on Stage A.

Rod Brooks of MIT and founder of iRobot will discuss how the future of American manufacturing might depend on a new generation of industrial robotics, which is the focus of his new company, Heartland Robotics. Rod’s talk, “Remaking American Manufacturing with Robotics“, is Saturday at 3:00 pm on Stage A.

Mitch Free, founder and CEO of MFG.com, will be talking about new ways of manufacturing products and how to take advantage of this new world of American manufacturing. His talk is at 3:30 pm Saturday on Stage A.

Esther Dyson, daughter of Freeman Dyson and a technology analyst and investor, will talk about her fascination with space. Esther recently completed a five-month training as a cosmonaut in Star City, Russia, just outside of Moscow. She’ll talk about her own experience training as well as her interests in the private space industry. Her talk, “What’s a nice lady like you doing in (a) space like this?“, will be Saturday at 1pm on Stage A.

The host of Make:TV’s Maker Workshop, John Park, will talk about the show and demonstrate the Personal Flight Recorder project that was demonstrated on a rollercoaster ride in the show’s first season. John will be speaking Saturday and Sunday at 3pm on Stage C.

Jeri Ellsworth will talk about how she created her own path in life and channeled her creative energy as an engineer, designing the highly acclaimed Commodore C64 30-in-1 Joystic. Her talk, “From Juvenile Delinquent to Self-Taught Electrical Engineer“, is Saturday at 4pm on Stage A.

Learn about stereoscopic 3D animation techniques from Special Awesome, makers of 3D stop-motion film Coraline. They will be talking about their equipment and their techniques at 1pm Saturday on Stage C. Alex Andon will talk about raising jellyfish and making jellyfish aquariums in his talk Sunday 12:30 pm on Stage A.

Jerry Glasser, an experienced pilot and flight instructor, will talk flying the SR-71 and other aircraft in his talk, “Flying the World’s Fastest Aircraft” on Sunday at 2pm on Stage A. Earlier on Sunday at 11 am on Stage A, McKinley Siegfried and her father, Rand, will talk about how she built her own airplane.

Phil Torrone is organizing a discussion on the business of Open Source Hardware. The panel, “Making Open Source Hardware into a Kit Business”, will happen Sunday at 1pm on Stage C.

Tito Jankowski will talk about “DIY Biology” on Saturday 1pm to 2pm on Stage B. Tom Igoe, author of “Making Things Talk” and a member of the Arduino team, will give a hands-on talk “LED Mania” on Sunday from 1pm to 2pm on Stage C. Nathan Seidle of Sparkfun Electronics will give two hour-long workshops on electronic prototyping, Saturday at noon and Sunday at 4pm on Stage B.

There are many, many more presentations and demos scheduled so please check out the full schedule. You can find schedules for each day with full listings, plus one-page at-a-glance schedules (PDF) for each day. In addition to all these great presentations and demos, Maker Faire will have over 500+ fascinating maker exhibits.

2 thoughts on “Exciting lineup of talks and demos at Maker Faire

  1. jon says:

    For those of us who are not able to get to the Maker Fair, will there be videos of the talks available on-line after the event?

    I hope so!

    Thanks!

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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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