Last year my daughter and I were really excited to attend London’s first Maker Faire, even if it was only a mini one. We learnt how to solder together, played with conductive Play-Do, marvelled at 3D printers in action and saw so many fantastic and creative exhibits. This year, the team behind the Elephant & Castle Mini Maker Faire are back for more of the same family friendly making, learning, crafting, inventing and tinkering at the London College of Communication and University of the Arts on the 15th November from 10 until 6. Entry is free to children (under 16) and students and only £5 for adults. A small price to pay for the many opportunities to get hands on and make stuff and be inspired by Makers, designers, artists, crafters, engineers, scientists and technologists from across London.
As before, there is a great selection of talks and workshops in addition to many exhibitors. We’ve got to try and make it to Technology Will Save Us‘ DIY synth session this time – we went to three different events they were at last year and missed out every time! There’s also a cool looking Letterpress workshop with the Inky Collective that looks like a lot of fun, and another where you can make a clever holiday card using Bare Conductive‘s clever conducting paints and pens
And we here at GeekDad are getting in on the action too! We’ve partnered with our friends from DIY.org to host a little stand of our own. Since last summer, I’ve been running a DIY club for my daughter and some of her school friends. We all get together in the holidays, pick one of DIY’s excellent skills and try to master it and earn our patch.
We wanted to have a very hands-on stand at the Maker Faire and we decided that the best way to do it would be to choose a project that anyone coming to visit us could join in with – and so we decided to build a Cardboard Box Mega-Block! We’ve spent the last few weeks collecting boxes and tubes of all sizes and now we need your help to fix them all together and see if we can make it bigger and better than before!
Anyone who comes to help us out can grab a sticker and complete their first challenge on the way to becoming a “Cardboarder” on DIY.org.
Hope to see you there!
