Source: Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
With its rich history dating back thousands of years, the world-renowned capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, is one of the must-see cities of the world. Alongside ancient, well-preserved crafts and traditions is the exponential growth of Czech maker culture, an initial stamp of which was made by one of the most famous 3D printer makers and enthusiasts in the world: Josef Prusa.
This weekend, maker history will be made as the fair city hosts its first annual Maker Faire Prague, June 23 and 24 at the Industrial Palace, which dates back to 1891. We spoke with the organizing team to learn more.What was the main impetus for organizing the first Prague Maker Faire?
It was a shared feeling among the members of our team that we have many open-source hardware, maker, and citizen science projects and groups in the Czech Republic, but they are not very visible to the general public. Prusa Research, makers of 3D printers, or Bastl Instruments, the famous synth company, are well-known abroad, but less so in our local context.
There has also been a surge of makerspace and hackerspace openings and activities across the country, such as DEPO2015, FabLab Brno, FutLab, PrusaLab, and others that have started to attract new members. Maker Faire is simply an ideal format to connect all these people and organizations. It is something of a rite of passage that will show the public the possibilities of this movement and connect the makers themselves.
We have a very diverse team comprised of academics, students, members of the business community, professional marketing & PR folks, and event organizers that all share a passion for maker projects. Josef Prusa, who makes amazingly popular 3D printers that all makers love, initiated the event after some conversations with Ivan Sobička from Žádná Věda (Not Rocket Science), a nonprofit organization famous for their fun geocaching and science events, and Jiří Zemánek from the Czech Technical University in Prague, who is a prolific maker of contraptions (for example, eggs with stroboscopic effects) but also a scientist building tools for micro-manipulation in magnetic and electric fields. They all use DIY, open hardware tools and techniques in their professional lives and decided to mobilize their social networks to bring up the whole event.
Another academic and maker interested in citizen science projects who joined early as core team member is Denisa Kera, who brought international experience and connections and managed the project in its early phase. Together with a professional production and event management team specializing in student festivals around Daniel Jirotka and Ondřej Kašpárek, we created a very diverse and balanced group.
We also had the amazing support of Jasna Sykorová, a partner from the communication & PR agency, Taktiq, that specializes in tech companies and events. She used to work as a volunteer for Maker Faire in San Francisco in 2015, and she brought to our team maybe the most interesting member, Leona Daňková (also from Taktiq), our marketing guru. Leona experienced her first Maker Faire in Chemnitz just this April and immediately fell in love with it, so she decided to involve her whole family. Her daughter, Anetka, is organizing one of the most popular booths in the Maker Faire, for which we are getting a lot of volunteers and requests: slime making. Anetka gathered a group of 7- to 10-year-old girls who will test various slime-making recipes on their tables.
The main goal for our first year is to show making as something that connects Czech society across cities and regions but also across generations and professions. The biggest challenge for us was to connect the traditional Czech maker activities and formats, such as the radio clubs and various technical clubs from the museums and schools, with the global movement of fab labs, makerspaces and shared workshops. We feel respect and admiration for these older activities and names for “making” (bastl, tinkering, home improvement), and we hope to show the continuity and to simply map what is happening in various public and private workshops, garages, labs, etc.
Another big theme for us is to show making and open hardware as a more engaging model in education, but also something that offers unique possibilities for business, science, art etc. The first year is simply about mapping the Czech maker scene and spirit, exploring its diversity and traditions, and connecting the people involved, helping them realize they are part of a global movement.
On 6,000 square meters, we have 180 exhibited projects and activities, over 20 workshops, and 50 presentations, and we expect around 5,000 people. Visitors will be able to shoot from the biggest air…
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