Some folks with a DIY spirit might enjoy this event. BD<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:12pt;margin-left:0px;text-align:center" align="center">
<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)"><b>Inaugural Mini Maker Faire comes to Urbana-Champaign:<br>Do-it-yourself event brings technology and craft together under one roof</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">Join us for the inaugural Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Independent Media Center, 202 S. Broadway, in downtown Urbana. Prices: $3 for adults; $1 for kids under 12.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">This one-day, family-friendly event celebrates the Do-It-Yourself spirit in our community with demonstrations in arts, crafts, engineering, music, science, and technology projects. At the UC Mini Maker Faire, the focus is on the process of making—not just the finished product. Unlike a typical sale or bazaar, Makers show how to create things instead of just selling their wares.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">Emerging from the national “maker movement” founded largely by MAKE Magazine, Make: Online, and CRAFT, Maker Faires have rapidly made a significant impact on American culture today. These regional events feature things people create themselves, from James Bond-worthy electronic gizmos to robotics and rockets, to crocheted food items and yarn bombs. There has been extensive national coverage of the “maker movement” in publications such as the New York Times, CNN, and ABC News. Find more information about the Maker Faire movement at <a href="http://makerfaire.com/" style="color:rgb(53, 66, 88)" target="_blank">http://makerfaire.com</a>.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">“This day of learning offers people skills instead of just more stuff,” said Brian Duggan, co-organizer of UC Mini Maker Faire and co-founder of Makerspace Urbana, a </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">community group of the Independent Media Center that provides an open technology lab for folks to build, tinker, innovate, and share.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">UC Maker Faire is organized by a team of DiYers headed by Duggan and Sarah Dolinar, local knitter and marketing/communications specialist. The committee includes Erich Heine, Jonathan Manton, Debra Woods, and Gail Rost and Peter Woods, both of The I.D.E.A. Store of the Champaign Unified Schools Foundation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)"><br>UC Mini Maker Faire includes a variety of makers: The I.D.E.A Store; the FabLab; Makerspace Urbana; Central Illinois Aerospace; Radical Librarians; CMKT4; the Bike Project of Champaign-Urbana; Wind, Water & Light; the Costume Closet of the IMC; ODDMUSIC Urbana-Champaign; and the School for Designing a Society. Demonstrations will range from paper folding to bike maintenance, from zine-making to rocket-making, from sewing skills to designing musical instruments.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)">The event is sponsored by Makerspace Urbana, The I.D.E.A. Store, University of Illinois NetMath Program, Dixon Graphics, and Common Ground Food Co-op; and is supported by MAKE and CRAFT magazines. More information at <a href="http://ucmakerfaire.blogspot.com/" style="color:rgb(53, 66, 88)" target="_blank">http://ucmakerfaire.blogspot.com</a>.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34, 34, 34)"><i>Information about Makerspace Urbana</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Makerspace Urbana is a community group, whose goal is to "provide an open community lab where people of diverse backgrounds can learn, teach, tinker, collaborate, share, innovate, socialize, and create."<span> </span>Towards this end they provide space, equipment and know-how so people at all levels can come and build things that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. Makerspace Urbana achieves this by a combination of open hours, small workshops, and long-term projects. Recently they hosted a afternoon session on how to make an electric instrument out anything, using piezoelectric microphones. As a current project, they are a participating in a competition called the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge The GGHC provided a grant to Makerspace Urbana, and in return, they are building robots for education.<span> </span>For more info please visit the website at<a href="http://makerspaceurbana.org/" style="color:rgb(53, 66, 88)" target="_blank">http://makerspaceurbana.org</a>.</span></p>
</span><br>-- <br>Sarah Dolinar<br><a href="mailto:sarahdolinar@gmail.com" target="_blank">sarahdolinar@gmail.com</a><div><br></div><div><font color="#FF0000"><b>Join me at the UC MINI MAKER FAIRE</b></font></div>
<div><font color="#33CCFF">Saturday, April 16, 2011, 10am - 3pm</font></div><div><font color="#33CCFF">Independent Media Center, downtown Urbana</font></div><div><font color="#FF0000">make | craft | inspire</font></div><div>
<font color="#FF0000"><br></font></div><div><font color="#FF0000"><a href="http://ucmakerfaire.blogspot.com" target="_blank">ucmakerfaire.blogspot.com</a></font></div>
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</div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.<br>303 W. Locust St.<br>Urbana, IL 61801<br><a href="mailto:briandolinar@gmail.com">briandolinar@gmail.com</a><br>