Toronto mini-Maker Faire documentary: what does it mean to be a maker?

Ryan Varga created "Makers," a 7-minute mini-documentary on the Toronto mini-Maker Faire. It's a very nicely shot, nicely edited piece that highlights the ingenuity and creative spirit on display at the event.

Held at Evergreen Brickworks, the Toronto Mini Maker Faire celebrated the culture of making, crafting, DIY-ing, tinkering, hacking and sharing. It was a weekend where makers of all kinds shared their projects and thoughts. Exhibits on display included robots, laser cutting, letterpress printing, a 3D print gallery and kinetic sculptures.
I visited the Toronto Mini Maker Faire at the Evergreen Brickworks to find out what it means to make things - to be a 'maker'?
This film is about that question. It is about the relationship between people and technology and how they merge through the act of making. Call it "craft in an age of digital fabrication".

Mini Maker Faire Mini Documentary. (Thanks, Justin!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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taghag

charming video, nicely made! the people in the video come across as enthusiastic and approachable. just lovely.

@Derek Quenneville #7
yes, look at that woman’s smile when she takes the 3D printed object in her hand!
Roy Trumbull

I think it’s important for a maker to find a mentor. I made circuit board prototypes using silk screen. Eventually I learned to work around a lot of problems but a couple of days with someone doing similar work would have given my learning curve a big boost.
My finest creation was a vacuum table made from a sink cutout drilled with a grid pattern. Underneath was a plastic basin that served as a plenum held by clamp hardware with the edges sealed by caulk. Into a hole in the side was the hose from a discarded vacuum cleaner. It worked great.
aethelberga

Those here disparaging ‘making’ as anything out of the ordinary has never been on the receiving end of that look you receive when you tell someone you spent the weekend working on your robot/quilt/homebrew project instead of watching American Idol or at the mall. I was there & was pretty impressed at the turnout (of both Makers & spectators), considering how quickly it was put together. Gave me hope that next year’s will be bigger & better. This film captures the spirit pretty well.
beerwhisperer

Didn’t read the article, but it sounds deceivingly close to “How cool ARE we?”, or possibly “How can we further segregate ourselves?” Really though, we all MAKE every day. I make reality, I make lunch, I make my bed. It’s why there is so many ways to roll faire, and why when you translate it directly you get all kinds of fun stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cool there are people using their hands and brains again, all good stuff. I just see this and feel sticky.
tylerkaraszewski

It seems a maker is someone who makes things for the sake of making them, as opposed to an engineer who makes things for the sake of solving a problem. This is probably why so many of the things that you see being built by “makers” seem frivolous (like the heart pendant in the video) — because you make them just to make them rather than because you had a problem that a heart pendant would solve.

Meanwhile, engineers are designing electronic stability programs for cars to keep people from getting in car accidents, rather than because it’s cool to build electronic stability programs for cars.

I’m not trying to pass judgement here, but this is just what I see.
- the_headless_rabbit
  
  “…so many of the things that you see being built by “makers” seem frivolous (like the heart pendant in the video) — because you make them just to make them rather than because you had a problem that a heart pendant would solve.”
  
  But these things do solve problems!
  
  Problem: I can’t tell if she’s into me or not.
  Solution: Give her the heart pendant. Now I can see what comments and actions of mine get her heart racing.
  
  Problem: I’m a shy nerd who feels uncomfortable approaching people.
  Solution: build something cool, so people will come up to me!
  (That’s why I make stuff)
  - the_headless_rabbit
    
    clarification: I didn’t make the heart pendant.
- kittnkat
  
  I think this is the difference
  
  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/paula_scher_gets_serious.html
- cinemajay
  
  And why does everything that’s made need to be a “solution” by an engineer? Can’t there be room for learning, art, sharing and connecting with other humans, experimentation, and/or discovery?
  
  I suppose those are “frivolous” pursuits.
  - tylerkaraszewski
    
    I didn’t say that all things needed to be solutions to problems, I was simply trying to define “maker” as opposed to “engineer”, I wasn’t saying that all other forms of creation besides engineering were worthless or wrong.
    - the_headless_rabbit
      
      tylerkaraszewski, I’m sorry if I mis-interpreted your tone.
      I’m just grumpy that my project didn’t make it into the video…
Robbo

I was at the Faire and it was awesome. What was best about the whole thing was how people were either consumed by or inspired by the idea that we CAN make and design our own “stuff” rather than being mere consumers of industrial product. A culture infused with tech obligates us to do more than merely body surf across the waves of innovation pre-packaged and sold to us – instead we are capable of and should embrace the tools and knowledge now readily available for us to create and manufacture the gizmos, devices, solutions and alternatives we desire and need. Making a sandwich is all well and good – but when you can print out your own knife & fork to hang on the side of the refrigerator you built for yourself – now THAT’s cool. The true innovators of the future we already inhabit are the Makers.
Major Variola (ret)

I could not make coffee recently, my 15 year old Krups was leaking steam out the filler port.

I diagnosed the problem and fixed it with some shoe-goo.

Lessons:

Do NOT keep an unemployed engineer away from his coffee.

Fixing = Understanding = Making, ying and yang, baby.

Would have taken me longer and $ to buy a replacement.. was raised rural and pre-Amazon, so this kind of problem solving is more innate than the “swap a new board” methodology common now.

You see this in other-than-firstworld cultures too.

Driven by necessity.
Derek Quenneville

I’m in the video explaining my MakerBot. It was great to see people’s faces light up when they saw it in action and got an inkling of the possibilities that DIY 3D printers represent.
Anonymous

I think the making happens in the mind and then there’s the decision to translate what you’ve made into reality or not. That’s the interesting part, where you find the limitations of your materials, serendipity, what physics will put up with, etc, and those help define the final product.
gellfex

I guess I’m as ambivalent about much of the Maker stuff as I am about most art. I went to art school, I’m a 4th (at least) generation metalworker, and have made my living designing & “making” custom gadgets for the SFX & entertainment industry for over 25 years.

There’s discipline and constraints to industrial design and engineering that is absent in much Maker art. The problems the world presents to be solved by technology, whether to chip a better stone hand axe or write better interface code, are much clearer and provide external feedback as to your success, rather than the self defined goals of an artwork.

Like all art, some Maker work is moving, thought provoking or intriguing, more is just techno-wanking.