Category Archives: Uncategorized

The first Derby Maker Faire took place at the weekend and we are still in recovery mode… it was AMAZING!! Over 550 attendees and 70+ makers took part on a rainy Sunday. We are immensely grateful to all who made it possible – our staff, our volunteers, our sponsors and our makers (who came from as Aberdeenshire, Brighton, Shropshire, London and Cardiff – to name just a few). We are also grateful to the people who made the effort to drag themselves away from Jubilee celebrations and into the rain, making their way down to the Silk Mill to see, explore, play, experiment and share the Maker Faire with us.

We will be spending the next few days gathering together images, video and soundbites collected from visitors and the huge number of social media posts. We will centralise this on our Tumblr page (
http://derbysilkmill.tumblr.com/
), so keep checking back to see more! If you have anything you would like us to share – please email emma@derbysilkmill.org an image or a link and we will post it. If you made it down – we really hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Here’s to next year!

Most of the makers have arrived and set up… they’ve been on tours of our museums and heard talks from Tim Hunkin (of Secret Life of Machines and Under the Pier show at Southwold fame) and Andy Harsley (of BBC Dragons Den fame) they’ve played with each others’ projects, they’ve sampled local bitter, they’ve retired to bed tired but happy. Now they’re ready for you all to arrive tomorrow! We hope to see you at the first Derby Mini-Maker Faire – open between 11am and 4pm on Sunday the 3rd of June.

Bristol Hackspace’s BBC computer runs a twitter feed!

If you have time over Saturday and Sunday, and would like to give us some valuable help – please email kim.miller@derby.gov.uk or phone 01332 642234 as soon as you can!

Have a quick look at who’s coming to share their projects at Derby Maker Faire this Sunday – we’ve put an outline list on our Makers page here to whet your appetite!
Who do you want to see most?

We have had confirmation from our Makers and we are incredibly excited about Sunday the 3rd of June now! We will be putting the Maker profiles up on the website over the next couple of days, but in the meantime let us tempt you with
Cyclepong from Lush Projects – play the classic Atari video game “Pong” with exercise bikes; radio-controlled Robots and self-balancing electric skateboards; Scalectrix races; Dr. Who Dalek; BASIC computer programming with the National Museum of Computing; member groups of the national Hackspace network; arts, crafts and bookbinding!
If you haven’t already booked your discounted ticket registration – click the eventbrite link at the top right of this page. We hope to see you there!

Mechanical Computing by Srimech – one of the Makers at Derby Mini Maker Faire.

While we won’t perhaps build a robot this size (maybe next year!), there will be lots of inspiring Making happening at the Derby Mini-Maker Faire… including pedal-powered projects, Dr. Who Daleks, experiments, hacks, kits, the lot!

When you register for tickets via our eventbrite page – you will then receive a discount when you bring your ticket on the day and pay on the door.

Full price tickets are as follows: Adults – £3, Under 18s – £2, Family of Four – £8, Under 5d Free.

We can’t wait to see you on the 3rd of June!

Thank you all for your applications to the first Derby Mini-Maker Faire – we’re thrilled with the quality of your applications and will be in touch within the week.
Our Maker application is now open exclusively to young people and educational organisations for the Young Makers element of our Maker Faire. The deadline for applications is 4th May.

Click here to go the the Young Makers Application form.

Other Makers who have missed the deadline, or if you like to support this event by volunteering or sponsoring, we would love to hear from you! Please get in touch with emma@derbysilkmill.org if you would like to discuss your project.

If you want to go on the mailing list to keep in touch with progress for the Mini-Maker Faire – click here to give us your details.

In response to requests for a little more time to put forward proposals – in particular from our education makers (who are coming back from a 2 week Easter break) – we have extended the Call to Makers. The revised deadline is now 12 noon on Monday the 23rd of April. Many thanks to all those who have sent their applications in already – you have some brilliant plans and projects! Keep ‘em coming guys….

Apply here – come one, come all!

Derby Mini Maker Faire is planned to take place at Derby Silk Mill (the former Industrial museum) on 2^nd/3^rd of June 2012. It will be an opportunity for makers to interact with each other, to share ideas, and to show examples of their work, projects, crafts, inventions, products and hacks in a vibrant fair-style event. We encourage you to join the fun and enter a project to exhibit – even if it isn’t finished yet!! Makers – click here to apply and show us your stuff!

Everyone is welcome to visit the Maker Faire on Sunday 3rd of June – families and maker fans come one, come all!

In the meantime – you can also join the Derby Makers Google Group to come along to workshops and contribute to the maker momentum for Derby Silk Mill.