Edinburgh International Science Festival presents the 2nd Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire this Easter Sunday. After a tremendously successful initial outing at Science Festival 2013 which saw more than 3000 visitors attend, it’s back for 2014 – this time bigger, shinier, and with more knobs on!
The Faire is a perfect Easter day out for craft enthusiasts, tech tinkerers and families, with a programme packed with over 70 maker exhibits, workshops and drop-in activities for people of all ages to enjoy, taking over all the major spaces of Science Festival Hub Summerhall in a day-long celebration of maker culture which showcases invention, creativity and resourcefulness from across Scotland and beyond.
From wearable technologies to do-it yourself computer games, new musical instruments, 3D printers and take-home technologies, Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire is a place where everyone will be inspired to get creative with technology. We have a life-size WALL-E robot built in a Fife garage by local maker Dale Wood, ‘tweet-able’ flame-throwers which ignite when a specially developed sensor receives a tweet as developed by Matt Green, and Citizen Bravo – a one-man band made by Matt Brennan (formerly of Scottish indie group Zoey Van Goey) in collaboration with artisan blacksmith David Frazier, amongst a host of other maker exhibits. Also on display will be a giant Tesla Coil and the world’s first Pedal powered hydraulic hybrid Reliant Robin pickup, which will be trucking around the Summerhall courtyard. As well as our interactive displays, we also have lots of bookable and drop-in workshops throughout the day covering everything from soap-making and jewellery crafting to musical instrument soldering and robot-making.
In addition to all the fantastic making going on, many of Summerhall’s permanent attractions are open to explore too. Official Festival brewer Barney’s Beer is brewed on the site of the original 1800s Summerhall brewer – and is available to drink in the Royal Dick, Summerhall’s onsite bar. Edinburgh Hacklab is part of the worldwide movement of Hackerspaces – shared spaces for people who mess around with technology for fun – calls Summerhall home too. In this shared space, they provide access to better facilities than we could each have at home, as well as opportunities to collaborate, learn, and socialise. And in a recent addition, Edinburgh’s first gin distillery in over 150 years can now be found in Summerhall, where small batches of hand crafted, beautifully balanced, marvelously mixedPickering’s Gin are produced.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
