Maker Expo shows and tells
“Toronto has more than a dozen maker spaces, but there’s something that makes Kitchener special,” says Cam Turner, Maker Expo co-organizer, Tinker Trunk owner and Maker Club leader. “We have the elbow room to try weird stuff and a deep variety of interesting problems to solve. We’re connected enough as a community to solve them.”
Turner’s sentiment will fill Kitchener City Hall on September 10 when Maker Expo draws nearly 100 makers specializing in everything from soldering to sewing, robotics to radio.
It’s not a lecture, it’s not a bazaar, it’s not even a science fair,” says Turner of the expo’s wide offerings. “It’s a show and tell.”
This show and tell – one that attracted over 7,000 attendees last year – is expected to be even grander in scale than ever before. A number of exhibitors have received grants, vendors will be peddling not just products but stories of their craft and, arguably, this event has been brewing in the region for decades.
Turner has seen the evolution of “the maker,” and the growth of an audience first hand; Maker Expo isn’t his first foray into Kitchener’s culture of creation.
“When my business came to an end in 2012, I asked my son what he wanted to do, thinking he would say hockey or soccer. But he wanted a club with friends to make stuff.”
This morphed into the widely popular Maker Club hosted at THEMUSEUM, and inspired the inception of the Tinker Truck. At the same time a making empire was budding in the region; makerspaces were opening, Family Hack Jams were booming and entrepreneurs with a penchant for handmade goods were coming out of the woodwork.
The demand for a space where people – particularly children – could make and experiment in a number of mediums was incredible and ever-increasing, drawing Turner away from his then directorship at Desire2Learn and into a proverbial toolbox.
He’s been there ever since along with many others, instigating clubs, camps, workshops and expos for those who identify as maker.
And for those who don’t.
“We’re all makers, and you can take that to heart. The expo, and making generally includes more than robotics or construction, its performance, drama, cosplay, knitting, music, magical and whimsical making,” says Turner.
“If you’ve ever worked to solve a problem – whether that’s building a bike for 10 people, or just filling a blank canvas – you’re a maker.”
The definition, though wide and welcoming is an important one for Maker Expo. In an industrial city-turned-tech hub, words like “hacking,” “craft,” and “maker,” are constantly in flux as their definitions ebb and flow with the coming and going of generations.
But Turner has high hopes for this evolution.
“The investment the City is making is really on a 20-year horizon. Things like Maker Expo won’t pay off in one political tenure, we’re teaching kindergarteners as well as adults right now,” he says. “But in 20 years, we won’t need to seek solutions elsewhere. We’ll be able to solve incredible problems. Perhaps we already can.”
Maker Expo is on Saturday, September 10 at Kitchener City Hall and is free to the public.
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Special thanks to Michael L. Davenport, Gareth Carr (kinetic makerlab) and Darin White (makebright.com) for photo contributions.