Who's going to a Barnes and Noble's Mini-Maker Faire?

[SenorZ]

Any post-"maker faire" feedback?

Our BN "mini maker faire" was a flop. There were three or four tables set up with demos of toys. And almost no customers.

We spent two hours driving our robot around book shelves pretty much undisturbed by humans.

[Sperkowsky]

Ours was a flop also imo. There was a decent amount of traffic since it is a pretty active Barnes and noble (with a very active Starbucks inside).

But, none of it was for the "Makerfaire" there was a few product tables but really they were just trying to sell products nothing really screams Makerfaire. There was another frc team one day for half of the day and an Fll team. But, other then that there was nothing else. On Friday and Sunday we were the only makers there. There were some positives. To start we made friends of the Barnes and Noble staff and they offered us a good spot in a gift wrapping fundraiser. We also got to stress test our new robot and it gave our programmer time to work everything out before next week's off-season event. Overall in NY it felt unnecessary as the real world Makerfaire happened a month ago.

I doubt they will do it again but if they do we probably will go.

[aeastet]

Hello all,

I am happy to report that in Holland Michigan our mini maker faire was amazing. I was sitting at a table where we were showing kids how to solder a circuit board. We had two solder stations set up and we had people waiting in line from the time I got there until after I left. I think we ended up with close to 150 circuit boards complete from Friday to Sunday.

I was also very surprised to see that the girls really took the show for wanting to sit down and solder. I bet it was 2 to 1 girl to boy for the three hours that I was there. I never got one break and I would gladly do it again.

Tim

[Foster]

The MMF at the Concord Pike store was OK. There was all the items that B&N sells and the staff knew about them and how they worked.

There was a table of Little-Bits (must have been close to $1000 worth) that future makers were building stuff with. They had a good project handout with how the 'Bits' worked and what the goal circuit. The person running that was very good, they knew their stuff.

The Middletown DE (home to 1370 and 4954) Public Library was there showing off their 3D printer. They are one of the few places in the state you can go and print your own stuff. They had their Makerbot running most of the day. B&N has a $400 printer that they sell and they had that printing stuff all day.

My take, not a 'Maker-Faire', but B&N did a good job. Bigger and better for next year. My big takeaway is that it's important to get signed up / show interest NOW for your stuff to get represented for next year.

[rsisk]

We were at the B&N at the Tyler Mall in Riverside on Friday. 3 hours, 6 visitors and that was with us in a prime location, right next to the register. We did meet a grandmother of a member of 1983 Skunkworks (sorry, didn't get a name)

Like others have said, the other displays were a 3D printer pretending to print an object (object was already done, the 3D printer was running with no filament) and an COTS robot toy.

The highlight was when one of our sponsors showed up for an hour and we got time to chat.

We ended up cancelling our Sunday spots due to poor showing on Friday and other priorities.

[Roger]

We were at the Walpole Mall Saturday afternoon to about 6. I was planning to stay to 7 but the crowds died down, so an early pack up. We did have plenty of space in the mall itself for driving, and we got lots of youngsters driving our test-bot. Alarm Robotics were with us Saturday, and came back for a Sunday session; I can't imagine much of a crowd then as the Patriots were playing down the street. There were several tables inside with kits to assemble, but I didn't get a chance to look.

It was about what I expected for a Mini-Maker Faire, in other words, local people showing off their crafts. I would call it a success in terms of advertising robotics in the Walpole schools.

This was definitely a corporate B&N affair. The manager can't have a Maker Faire on their own, but it sounded like there will be another next year this time.

[Billfred]

The Barnes & Noble here in Columbia (technically, Forest Acres) is part of the notoriously-dead Richland Mall, and it was rainy, and we had the Sunday night spot. I had pretty low expectations, and while the turnout was modest those that were there seemed to have fun.