The Maker Faire—often referred to as the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—will be celebrating 12 years of bringing the Maker Movement to the Bay Area.
Started over a decade ago as a niche festival for tech tinkerers, do-it-yourself hobbyists and craft-making enthusiasts. The Maker Faire is a space for makers to showcase innovative, creative, and ingenious ideas, experiments and projects. Make:, the San Francisco based magazine for makers has been widely credited with jumpstarting the worldwide Maker Movement. Make: was first published in 2005.
In an interview for the SF Chronicle, Maker Faire co-founder Sherry Huss said, “We’ve created a newfangled country fair. But Instead of pigs and pies, people are bringing rockets and robots.”
In the spirit of fostering greater collaboration across the educational ecosystem, the family-friendly event will feature over 1,300 makers, educators, artists and entrepreneurs side-by-side showcasing their cutting-edge inventions, talks and interactive exhibits in a wide variety of projects across topics including kinetic art, robotics, steampunkers, biohacking, engineering, 3D printing, fire art, drones, food making, science, health, microelectronics, fashion, arts and crafts, DIY, music and more that celebrate the growing maker movement.
Projects will range from garage hobbies and fun inventions at every level to prototypes and new-to-market products. There will be opportunities to get hands-on with projects and, as always, gain new skills and knowledge.
The annual showcase has spawned similar events all around the world. 191 Faires in 2016 alone engaged and drew over 1.4 million attendees globally in 38 countries around the world—including more than 100,000 viewers each in Rome, Italy and Shenzen, China.
Lick’s involvement with the Maker Faire began after several students expressed interests in robotic competitions. What initially began as a student/parent effort eventually developed into an annual staple of Lick’s tech arts program.
Lick’s tech arts’ department chair, Andrew Kleindolph, says he’s, “interviewed eighth graders that have heard about Lick from the LWHS booth at the Maker Faire.”
Besides probably attracting unique applicants, Kleindolph credits the Maker Faire with giving Lick a “tighter vision over what we do” in the context of other similarly STEM and engineering themed but different schools such as Lighthouse Charter and The Nueva School.
Kleindolph says, “Lick is a brilliant place where building happens.” However, what makes Lick unique is its “strong sense of craftsmanship and design” as reflected in the fine woodworking and furniture building that comes out of the shops.
A celebration of over a decade of DIY making culture, Maker Faire Bay Area 2017 runs Friday-Sunday, May 19-21st, 2017, at the San Mateo Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo, CA. Friday, 1pm to 5pm; Saturday, 10am to 7pm; Sunday, 10am to 6pm. Tickets range from $20.00 to $80.00 (ages 3 and under are free) and can be purchased at https://mfba2017.eventbrite.com.
