An Awesome Sucess!

If you missed this year’s Cleveland Mini Maker Faire, you missed something really awesome.  How do we measure awesome?  There are always numbers.  Those help:

• Over 100 Makers (up from fewer than 50 last year)
• Nearly 4,000 attendees (up from around 2,000 last year)
• More sponsors, all of whom are awesome (see them all here)
• 2 Buildings
• 8 Floors
• 1 pretty bad snowstorm (which wasn’t so awesome)

But numbers only tell part of the story.  Saturday was awesome because everyone seemed to come to the event from such a good place that was truly about sharing, learning, and doing.  The awesome photos from Frank Lanza really say it all!  Enjoy!

The 2014 Program

It’s up and ready to go!  Is it perfect!  No!  Will there be changes!  Yes!  But it gives you a darned good idea of what you’ll be able to see and do on Saturday.  Check it out here:  Link

Cleveland Makes

In a recent Slate article, Mathew Yglesias proposed moving all the big tech firms from the Bay Area to Cleveland (Move Silicon Valley to Cleveland).  It’s a pretty well-informed piece that gets beyond the tongue and cheek suggestion of Google moving here…kind of:

All you need is a city that has bigger problems than douche-y Facebook posts, creating plenty of room for local housing investment to become a win-win rather than an engine of displacement. Cities such as Buffalo, N.Y., or Pittsburgh come to mind, although unlike Detroit and Cleveland, they lack a major airport. Plans to save Detroit, however, are a bit cliché at this point, and I worry that any tech hub you tried to build there would naturally drift over to Ann Arbor, Mich., anyway. But Cleveland’s got plenty of affordable housing, plenty of available office space, flights to every important North American city, and even its own Federal Reserve bank.

Whether it is coverage of the surprisingly good food scene (the New York Times has continuous amnesia on this topic) or favorable rankings of world-class institutions like the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Orchestra, the world seems to be composing a new tagline for our city. Cleveland: Better Than You Think.

Guerilla Marketing Strategy for Poetry

A guerilla marketing strategy for Poetry is something that exists to bring the poetry of the underground and small press poets of the world to the mainstream. Through my own initiative, Poetic Plague Project, I provide a service to poets who are interested in publishing opportunities where none currently exist and who want to get their work out there to a broad audience in a radical way.Here is the link for you to get involved with the PPP: http://www.bmstroud.com/poetic-plague-project.html. The service is only $25 which includes up to four of your poems published, fifty nano tubes, magnify glass, and a log journal.

Photos from the April 13, 2013

Thank you everyone!

Photo credit: Frank Lanza

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Meet the Makers: High Definition Video for Community Purposes

Phil Shapiro
in Make Change, Make Games & Enter the Lightbox (Floor 2)

The purpose of the workshop is to show and explain that it’s possible to create great looking Blu-Ray video disks (using inexpensive DVD media), without spending a lot of money. This workshop will be taught using a $300 Canon Vixia high definition camcorder and Roxio Toast 11 disk burning software for Macintosh computers. This workshop will also explain and show how to get great audio and lighting for your homemade high definition videos. Lastly, this workshop will show how you can distribute (for free) your community-themed BluRay DVD disks via the Internet Archive.

Phil Shapiro works as the public geek at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, a small public library in the suburbs of Washington DC. He is interested in digital storytelling as a tool for weaving social fabric. He uses storytelling tools on all computer platforms, but spends most of his time advocating for the use of open source software. His most proud YouTube video is titled: Adding the Roof to an Art Museum in Google SketchUp, a screencast that explains how to add the headshot of an artist to a virtual art museum created using Google SketchUp. Phil’s blog posts can be found at http://opensource.com/users/pshapiro

Meet the Makers: Make and Take Kinetic Light Rattles

Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack
in Make Change, Make Games & Enter the Lightbox (Floor 2)

In this workshop participants will make a small rattle with LED lights that illuminate when shaken without any batteries! Participants will learn basic electronics, soldering techniques and origami (paper folding). No previous experience with electronics or origami is required. This workshop is suitable for children, teens, and adults (although we ask that for younger children 10 and under the parents stick around to supervise). Perseids, named after the annual meteor shower, is a visual instrument based on rattles. When shaken, metal ball bearings impact and vibrate the walls of quartz crystal elements, generating electricity. Hard shakes of the instrument produce bright flashes of light, while softer oscillations produce gentle flickers of light.

Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack collaborate to investigate the connections between ecology, industry, and science. Their research interests include exploring sustainability and energy production through art installations and kinetic objects using sound and light, and are working with dancers and percussionists to develop interactive, human-powered artworks. Selected exhibitions and performances have been at The Art House in Austin, TX, Virginia MOCA in Virginia Beach, VA, Arlington Art Center in Arlington, VA, MOCA Cleveland in Cleveland, OH, The Print Center in Philadelphia, PA, the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, OH, the National Museum of Glass in Eskisehir, Turkey, The Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, OH and the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, PA.

Meet the Makers: Thinking With Things: How To Answer Some Tough Questions With Play-doh, Pipe-cleaners & Beads

Sharon M. Wasco
in Make Change, Make Games & Enter the Lightbox (Floor 2)

Inspired by relatively recent developments in neuroscience and philosophy, and wisdom from pedagogy and the arts, this workshop is grounded in the evidence that cognition is embodied. I will facilitate a demonstration of the power of hands-on participation in fostering group interaction. Working together, participants will use familiar physical materials to create and share tangible responses to a difficult question.

Sharon M. Wasco, PhD, is a community psychologist and maker of change. Convinced by early experiences as a child welfare caseworker and victim advocate that groups of people can push back against even the most daunting of problems, Sharon works today as a consultant to leaders within the movement against sexual violence. The introduction of familiar and friendly objects such as Lego bricks, construction paper, and glue sticks has transformed the way she works with diverse groups. Today, she lugs her beads and buttons, Play-doh and sticky notes across various state lines trying to solve problems tough enough to keep her up some nights. Commitments to collaboration, diversity and pluralism guide her work.

Meet the Makers: I-Dawson

Shariq Ali, Adam Bettcher, Mykie Hrusovski, Henry Reed, Jason Turnidge
in Make Change, Make Games & Enter the Lightbox (Floor 2)

I-Dawson is a field goal kicking simulator that uses a series of mechanical and electronic components to “kick” a paper football toward, and with any luck, through a scaled field goal. The simulator is operated by a microprocessor that also controls a defensive “opponent” that will randomly appear, jump and block the field goal attempt. The project is affectionately named after Browns kicker Phil Dawson, who some speculate, may also be partly mechanical.

We are a Cleveland-based Collective of Architects and Engineers – buildings both fear and respect us. We work with responsive design and intelligent components in our professional lives, and tinker with them as hobbyists because we can. We are interested in forging the raw ore of commonly-found technology into brilliant, explosively spectacular solutions to the world’s most important problems.

Meet the Makers: Miser Magazine’s Magical Nontechnical Page Construction

Miser Magazine
in Printing Point & Cool Chemistry (Floor 1)

Magical Nontechnical Page Construction is meant to encourage people who might not otherwise submit their art for publication to take an active role in the content that is being produced in Cleveland. With materials as simple as paper and art supplies, we intend to create an inclusive atmosphere for both experienced and inexperienced artists. So draw, paint, make a collage or write out a poem! Our favorites will be scanned, uploaded and voted for online, and the top few will be printed in an upcoming issue!

Miser Magazine features artists and writers throughout Northeast Ohio and the surrounding areas, regardless of name recognition. A free bimonthly magazine, our growth is largely dependent on the support and involvement of our community. Printed in a garage and hand-stapled and distributed, each issue takes on its own personality. It is our belief that if you look closely enough, you can find great things in ordinary places.