Walking in a Maker Wonderland: Makerland Day 1

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 Blocks, Kate 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.

Our submarine before assembling #makerland @polidea pic.twitter.com/t4eN4eFQuk

— Konrad Rodzik (@konradrodzik) March 17, 2014

Submarine in progress :D #makerland pic.twitter.com/NETmNojpRT

— Konrad Rodzik (@konradrodzik) March 17, 2014

Final product! Submarine #makerland pic.twitter.com/CBTxmhDiY5

— Konrad Rodzik (@konradrodzik) March 17, 2014

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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.

The book is available here: https://t.co/gu2nfmXqtE ! Really. So much UK maker events can learn from #Makerland pic.twitter.com/QQp3Mec7gA

— R (@RachelRayns) March 17, 2014

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.

3D printed badges are very appropriate for a conference with 36! 3D printers.

The Makerland artwork and scenic elements are fantastic. This is the main stage podium for presenters.

Mobile Vikings, a European mobile phone company, setup a soldering station where attendees could make a “Cellular Detector” that lights up as a cell phone rings nearby.

In the "Python and Ruby Sitting in a Tree" workshop, attendees programmed an Arduino to interact with sensors such as the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, the VCNL4000 light sensor, the HC-SR404 ultrasonic ranging module, and the HC-SR501 PIR sensor module.

Wojtek Siudzinski and Matt Kozak assist Makerland attendees at the “Python and Ruby Sitting in a Tree” workshop.

In the “Hack Your House” workshop, attendees controlled a home doorlock with an Arduino, an RFID reader and a servo motor.

Jon Gottfried leads attendees at the “Hack Your House” Makerland workshop.

Karolina Chmiel and Antoni Kedracki taught attendees to build a smart watch using a LilyPad microcontroller.

Alan McCullagh teaches attendees to use the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi camera to take photos (and videos) without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor attached. A good thing to learn, even if you don't have hens!

In the “Dive!, Dive!, Dive!” workshop, makers built underwater robots from a locking food storage container!

The “Dancebot” workshop was crowded with makers wanting to build these 3D printed dancing robots.

Front view of the Dancebot. The design files and code are all available on github.

Dancebot sporting its Arduino UNO backpack.

Jason Huggins, designer of the Dancebot, looking over one of the many robots at the workshop table.

Paweł Szymczykowski led the “Build a Bot” workshop by teaching attendees to build one of his SumoBot Jr kits.

The SumoBot Jr. is Open Hardware and can be found at sumobotkit.com.

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!