Update on the Eurisko Melbourne planning for November 2nd & 3rd 2013

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Paul Szymkowiak

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May 22, 2013, 11:23:23 PM5/22/13
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Hi folks,

I mentioned briefly at the AGM, and in discussions with some of you in person, the progress we're making working towards a 2-day event in November this year, focused on makers, hackers, crafters and other DIY/ DIT cultures and communities.  As a general reference, this is intended as a follow on event to Melbourne Mini Maker Faire, with a similar community style and approach.

We soft-launched the wordpress site a month or so back, but we're now starting to ramp up the comms about the event and the content updates on the site.

Ammon, James and myself (all members of the Mini Maker Faire team) are running point on the early-stage event organisation, but the main intent of the event is to offer community groups and individuals to actively engage in bringing the event together, and to have the opportunity to share knowledge and skill on the DIY/ DIT projects you are passionate about.  As such, I'd love to see individual CCHS members - as well as CCHS represented as a group - take advantage of the opportunity.

You can find various answers at euriskomelbourne.com to a number of the questions you may have (with more answers forthcoming as the site evolves).  The website is very much a work in progress: an iterative and incremental development effort balancing the immediate needs with longer-term ideas.  I'd welcome and very much appreciate any feedback and input you have on the website or the event itself.  

I'll offer a few points here that might be helpful:

 - 2nd & 3rd of November 2013
 - At the Artshouse Meat Market venue in North Melbourne (near Royal Womens hospital)
 - Run in conjunction with City of Melbourne's Knowledge Week events.
 - focus on "discovery by doing", with a preference for contributors who are interested in openly sharing their projects, knowledge and skill.
 - intending to support as wide a community of DIY/ DIT folks as possible: makers, hackers, crafters, etc.
 - intending to enable suitably-aligned commercial activities, such as "maker" product or service sales.


If you have any questions, please send them either via the website contact options or feel free to ask them on this thread.



Cheers,

Paul 

Paul Szymkowiak

April Staines

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May 23, 2013, 12:19:35 AM5/23/13
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I might share this on my company's social network, if that is ok.  Its the sort of geeky stuff I like.

With regards to the name "Eurisko"  Its a little abstract for some, was there any reason why the original "maker faire" isnt being used?

thanks

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April Staines - Melbourne AU


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Luke Weston

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May 23, 2013, 12:26:31 AM5/23/13
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Hi April,

Paul can probably explain it better than I can, but if you want to hold a Mini Maker Faire (the name Maker Faire is reserved only for the big official Maker Faires, the small local volunteer-run ones are called Mini Maker Faire, it is to Maker Faire what TEDx is to TED) then you need to apply to O'Reilly for a license to use the Maker Faire brand to hold your Mini Maker Faire, and if you are granted that license it's on their terms, you have to run everything - which you're volunteering to do for free - on their terms, their way.

But you can have your own event on your terms and call it whatever you want, the only thing you lose is the official Mini Maker Faire brand, to whatever extent you think that makes a difference for the promotion of the event in your local community, but you gain increased flexibility and independence and reduced costs.


To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/connected-community-hackerspace/CAB3zPcV-831A%3DXOXSD5Fj96WqAXajkOfnu%3DgtC%3De8zLPYnh36A%40mail.gmail.com?hl=en-GB.

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April Staines

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May 23, 2013, 12:35:59 AM5/23/13
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Do what Oz Comic Con did,   Oz Maker Faire

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April Staines - Melbourne AU


Paul Szymkowiak

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May 23, 2013, 12:50:56 AM5/23/13
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Hi April,

Great questions :)

Yes, perfectly fine to promote it on any channels you want.  Thanks for the support - very much appreciated.

At this stage, we're mainly focusing on getting the dialogue going with the community of contributors to help shape the event, and of course sponors to help us cover the costs.  But it's perfectly fine for more passive participants to listen in on and contribute to the discussions.

Luke has touched on a number of aspects related to the name.  Maker Faire is a registered brand/ trademark of O'Reilly's, and needs to be licensed from them, as Adelaide did for their recent event.  There are various requirements for this, arguably the most tricky to manage is the lead time O'Reilly require.

However, it's a more complex issue than it might appear on the surface, and other reasons for not going with the maker faire name.  I tried to cover most of our thinking around this question in this blog post: http://euriskomelbourne.com/why-eurisko

Hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have further questions. :)

Cheers,

Paul


April Staines

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May 23, 2013, 3:57:43 AM5/23/13
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So would people who like to "make" props and or costumes and or stuff like that be someone who would get involved with this?  I have never been to something like this before so not sure what to expect.

Are there panels, vendors, displays and that kind of thing,  eg a bit like a sci-fi convention but with makers and less cosplay?


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April Staines - Melbourne AU


Paul Szymkowiak

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May 25, 2013, 3:44:02 AM5/25/13
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Hi April,

More good questions :)

> So would people who like to "make" props and or costumes 
> and or stuff like that be someone who would get involved with this?

Absolutely! We had a bit of steampunk representation at the last event, but more would be better!:


We'd welcome more costumed participants across various genres, including performance/ and installation proposals. Cosplayer involvement would be fantastic. We're particularly keen for hands-on self-driven activities, instructed workshops, demonstrations, presentations that focus on how people can get creating things themselves.

Here's an overview of what various people have done for other maker events with a focus on costume:



> I have never been to something like this before so not sure what to expect.
> Are there panels, vendors, displays and that kind of thing,  
> eg a bit like a sci-fi convention but with makers and less cosplay?

Last event, we had three rooms running workshops and presentations throughout the day, ranging from 20 minutes to 90 minutes in duration.  We had three activity areas, two of which were used for soldering and lego workshops, and a third for the make-do "maze" construction event.  And we had an exhibitors hall with various sized stalls.  We'll have something similar this time, and we'd like to add one or more performance stages, some fixed installations, and possibly an area for mobile contraptions (robots, electric bikes, etc).

The primary aspect we're focusing on is sharing knowledge and skill in DIY techniques, and we'd like to support as many hands-on activities/ workshops/ classes as practical limits will allow.  But we'll have hard time and space constraints on what is possible as hands-on activity, so demonstrations, presentations etc will be great to augment more immersive aspects.

So really we'd be open to supporting anything along those lines.  Because we want the event to be for the community, we're happy to support anything we can (within practical constraints) that community members are interested in.  The idea is to co-create the event to enable whatever people want to do.  If there's something you'd love to do, or that you've wanted to do that other events haven't enabled you to, we'd be keen to help support that.  We're hoping the lead time will be sufficient to create some event-specific installations, performances, games etc.

If you have specific ideas you'd like to share at this stage, please feel free to email me directly, or use the contributors contact form to send through an outline:



Cheers,

Paul
 
Paul Szymkowiak 

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