As you already know, the theme of our conference this year is Make! and centers around everything related to the joy of creating and DIY culture.
With that in mind, we have decided to give our conference participants the opportunity to test their dexterity in our first ever MakerSpace, which promises to be full of amazing things to do.
During breaks between sessions this Friday at Stara Zajezdnia, our attendees will be able to take part in special mini-workshops prepared by the best maker initiatives in Kraków.
Here are some of the things you’ll be able to make as well as the makers behind them:
Laser & Fab WORKSHOP gives people the opportunity to bring their ideas to life as well as being experts on different materials used for construction.
During the conference, participants will use prepared materials to construct a miniature world. They will have different sized tiles to use that will allow them to build various structures as well as supports. Afterwards, the constructed world will be used as the setting for a game, which will involve slinging balls with a slingshot to hit specific structures (a la Angry Birds).
Maker Space Kraków offers methodological and technical support to multidisciplinary design teams. This maker community welcomes people who like design, technology and manufacturing things. On the day of the event, workshop participants will have the opportunity to see how the revolutionary Makey Makey system works. Participants will have a blast discovering that almost anything around us can be converted into a controller.
Do you know what a homopolar motor is? Wytwórnia is a creative space in the city center, with an open workshop and studio combining the ideas of the Fabrication Laboratory and co-working spaces, and during the event they will show us how they work. Just a simple battery, a magnet, a piece of wire and a good idea is enough to create a small toy in a short amount of time. During Wytwórnia’s workshop, participants will learn the principles behind how a homopolar motor works and will be able to show off their creativity in the creation of the most interesting constructions.
Hackerspace Kraków is a laboratory open to the local community, which includes electronic workshops and meetings between hackers, people interested in technology and tinkerers. They have prepared four different workshops especially for TEDxKraków:
1. Elementary building workshop with an electric brush.
2. Electronic jewelry consisting of tri-color LEDs (RGB, able to shine in virtually any color), batteries and a small controller, which workshop participants will be challenged to sew into material and create a bracelet, earrings or something else entirely.
3. Stellaris LaunchPad is the same as Arduino. After the workshop on programming the device, each participant will be able to take their creation with them along with instructions on what else it can do.
4. Soldering basics and a musical pencil. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to learn how to use a soldering iron and built their first musical pencil that plays while you write.
The final initiative is Materialination, known from last year, and is the largest community of 3D printing fans in Poland. For TEDxKraków participants Materialination has prepared a workshop to create a simple, custom 3D model. During the event, they will print all of the designs created by participants, which they will then use to form a single, common, long TEDx chain.
Our partner for MakerSpace is CapGemini, thanks to whom we are able equip our workshops with the necessary tools and gadgets!
We will be posting up the results of TEDxKraków participants’ tinkering via our Facebook as well as our blog!
Stay tuned!