2016 Paris Maker Faire. © Makery
Nice score! For its 3rd edition on April 30 and May 1, the Maker Faire doubles its attendance levels with 65,000 visitors. Let’s take a look at a non-stop weekend of maker frenzy.
Jackpot for the Maker Faire Paris 2016! The fair of makers, this year set up at the entrance of the Foire de Paris (International Paris trade fair), attracted more than 65,000 curious visitors on April 30 and May 1, multiplying by two the attendance levels of its previous edition. It thus rose to the second European position, behind the Rome Maker Faire that registered a record number of 100,000 visitors last October. This DiY fair, born in 2006 in the United-States under the leadership of Make magazine, is organized in about 160 cities around the world.
Demos for the general public
300 projects, 850 makers… For this Maker Faire with a much less commercial tone than the previous ones, the invited makers set themselves in demo mode of robotics, electronics, sewing or even DiY music for the general public. It was in fact difficult to make one’s way through to the jam-packed workshops of Techshop and Leroy Merlin (DiY store), between two electrifying demonstrations of the youtuber superstar Experimentboy, the strolling of the giant ant from the Machines de l’Ile de Nantes and aerostat drone flights from the fablab Lorem.
Best-of Makery
During the festivities, Makery was on its stand, answering numerous questions, showing labs on the Cardboard in 360° and presenting its laser cut map of labs, but was also in the aisles. Photo overview of our favorites and projects to follow.
The true end for expensive glasses?
The Impression Humaine (Human printing in the health domain), created in 2014, wants to facilitate access to medical equipment for the most needy in our society. It presented at the Maker Faire its project of open source wooden and Plexiglass glasses made from laser cutting and 3D printing. For the lenses, the association is looking for partnerships with opticians. Watch this space.
And Toysfab was pumping, pumping
The excellent Toysfab a regular of Maker Faires, has once again set fire to the fair with its live tutorials such as this sweet distributor that must be earned
Fablabs from the Yvelines region are playing the salvage card
In the area of fablabs, the Sqylab and the Sunlab from the Yvelines region (near Paris) demonstrated their prototypes of numerical control machines made from salvage materials by their members. On the stand, an old hospital lab robot turned into a digital milling machine is busying itself with varying levels of success.
The Wikitour of the Wikifab
Wikifab talks to makers before its launch at the beginning of June. The free tutorial sharing platform for fablabs is available in beta version. “But we will soon go on a French Wikifab Tour to list open source projects”, explains Clément, member of the team. The project is waiting for the support of the Wikipedia foundation to launch an international and multilingual version.
Les portes de la @MakerFaireParis viennent d'ouvrir ! Venez nous voir pour discuter documentation et tutoriels. pic.twitter.com/qy5wDCWK4A
— Wikifab (@wiki_fab) May 1, 2016
The Wikifab website in beta version
Make some noise!
Other center of attraction: electronic lute-making workshops of Trublion and Brutpop, two collectives of artists that Makery is following closely and invited to the event for the first time. Emilien Ghomi, Emilien Ghomi was showing the public his instruments born within the Parisian hackerspace la Blackloop.
Conductive ink on every floor
Students of EPSAA, the Parisian professional graphic art school, worked on an imaginary city… You visited it with headphones by sliding your finger on the conductive paint that triggered audio and video clips.
And there goes the dino
Find all the photos of the 2016 Paris Maker Faire on Makery’s Flickr account