Turning Ideas Into Reality

“they have one set of skills that they bring, but then the other people in that shared space have other skills that they can bring to the table and it’s in that combination of shared skills where the magic happens.”

Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make magazine says more and more people around the world are embracing the Maker culture and what has emerged is a spectrum “there are some people who push back completely and want to reject it (consumerism) and they become extreme and go completely off the grid and make almost everything that they use, and the food that they eat and the clothes that they wear, but the cool thing about the Maker movement is that you can dial the amount of creativity and hands on activities so that it suits your own skill level and interest level.  Some people doing their own cooking is a big leap forward, so that’s the other end of the spectrum and then there’s everything in between.

Frauenfelder himself has a 3D printer that he uses to repair things around the house “I’ll still happily buy products and things but I like to modify things and repair things myself.”

Frauenfelder says more and more community spaces are emerging around the world that are dedicated to the Maker movement. He says these are spaces where people can share idea and skills “they have one set of skills that they bring, but then the other people in that shared space have other skills that they can bring to the table and it’s in that combination of shared skills where the magic happens.”  Frauenfelder says there is a maker space in Los Angeles and a maker space in Japan that has collaborated to make a radiation sensing devices to measure radiation all over Japan “they’ve created this incredible live map of all the different radiation readings, they’ve done over 10 million radiation readings, and it’s something the government wasn’t able to do…there were some who were good at GPS, there were some who were good at programming, there were some who were good at putting things inside enclosures they worked together without pay and they’ve created a very useful tool and a huge data set that is used by scientists around the world.”

Frauenfelder says this is an example of how in recent years Makers have taken a leap to another level of involvement and engagement in the world “they’ve started to create not only cool things but they’ve created systems and technologies and tools and methods…that will enable anyone to become a Maker of cool things.”

Mark Frauenfelder will speak on why communities are embracing the Maker culture at the Boulder Public Library, Canyon Theater on Friday October 16th from 6pm-8pm. The newly renovated Boulder Public Library is home to a new community Maker space.

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