Author Archives: makerfairefortwayne

All humans are interested in learning how things are made.  Whether it’s a widget, a painting, a video game, a robot, a new dish with vegetables from you garden, a building, or a modified car.  That’s why the TV show How Things are Made is so successful.  Makers are the folks who not only want to find out things are made, they are compelled to take things apart to find out why, or how to make something bigger, or better, or more efficient.

If you are one of these people, you could exhibit as one of our Makers too.  If you’re working on cool projects at home, have an idea for a product you want to share with others, etc., complete the Call for Makers on this website and meet other Makers just like you.

Either way, join us Oct. 6 & 7 for the 2nd Annual Fort Wayne Regional Maker Faire – Powered by TekVenture and learn more about the process, tools, and materials creative and innovative people use for making things.  If you’re not a Maker, who knows, you may just want to start making things too.

Maker and committee member Ed DeWitt came up with the cool idea of making a FWR Maker Faire logo out of LEGOs.  We decided to have a little fun  and asked United Arts’ Taste of the Arts guests how many LEGOs it took to build the logo.  Well  Maureen Aren of Auburn, IN won the prize but instead of taking home the T-shirt, she opted for 2 free tickets to the FWR Maker Faire!  Congratulations Maureen.  By the way, we had a low guess of 80 and high guess of 20,000.  The correct number was 1,665.  Congratulations Maureen for your estimate of 1,653.

Visit us each day as students from Taylor University in Upland launch a weather balloon from the FWR Maker Faire.  Specific times are undetermined as the team must work with prevailing winds.  However, visitors can stop by the TekVenture tent after each launch to watch results from the instrument kit (cube-Sat.) as they’re sent live to computers set up in the Weather Station.  Thanks to Jeff Dailey and the Taylor U. team for providing this activity and  supporting our wonderful event.

Makers are registering left and right but for those who operate on your own time, we’ve decided to extend the Call for Makers.  Call your family and friends and let them know they can still register to exhibit at the FWR Maker Faire.  The registration deadline has been extended to September 15.  Complete your Call so we know to plan on you.

If you’ve been thinking about motorizing your skateboard for the FWR Maker Faire, check out this race – skateboard vs. a Corvette.

The Fort Wayne Regional Maker Faire® is a 2-day family-friendly event to showcase Makers and the cool things they’re making in their basements and garages.  In partnership with Make Magazine, the voice of the DIY or Maker movement, the FWR Maker Faire will include attractions to draw public interest; hands-on workshops for learning how to solder, weld, learn about basic electricity, glass blowing, and more; seminars for a more in-depth look at a wide variety of topics; great food for purchase, “The Race”, and live entertainment.

This event is unique in that Makers are asked to actually make something in their exhibit, offer some type of hands on opportunity, or at the very least, convey to visitors process, tools, and materials they used to make whatever it is that they exhibit.  Maker Faires are really hard to describe in detail.  You just have to come to experience the creative energy in the air.  Think of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s Chalk Walk only in 3D.

A benefit for TekVenture, a not-for-profit art and technology laboratory being built near downtown, the FWR Maker Faire is the place to be.  Maker Faires are the only place under one tent for checking out art projects, robots, woodworking, technology wizards, crafters, machinists and others as they connect with one another to share ideas and learn new ways of making things.  The cool thing is you might just learn something too.

We’ll again be exhibiting at Taste of the Arts event to benefit Arts United.  Come see us Saturday, August 25 12-7 pm at Freimann Square as we showcase a few key pieces of old and new technology.  We’ll be boiling eggs with our solar cooker then printing on them with our Eggbot (the first one sold in the nation); showing the basics of CNC milling, showing off Casey Drudge’s newest Chain Reaction Challenge machine, and enjoying good food from Fort Wayne’s finest restaurants.