4th dublin maker

I now think of 2012 as the Mini Maker Faire boom. It was the year that the UK Maker Faire didn’t run, sporning many Mini Faires into creation. That year I first co-produced Derby Mini Maker Faire, Manchester had the unofficial official (mini) Maker Faire and of course there was the first Maker Faire for Ireland, Dublin Mini Maker Faire all in 2012!

  
But why “mini”? Why not Dublin Maker Faire? To drop the “mini” part you need to be a featured Faire. This entails a bit more involvement from Maker Media and a different licence. Having been involved with conversations about the original ideas for a London based mini Faire I know that the name Elephant & Castle Mini Maker Faire was a compromise. The E&C team having been told that “London” could not hold a Mini Maker Faire. That being true, maybe Dublin couldn’t either? Anyway Dublin Mini Maker Faire dropped Maker Media and have gone for the alternative self branded Dublin Maker which now enjoys it’s 4th year. 

  
The event is one day only “it’s fairer on the Makers” explained event co-producer Jeffery Roe of TOG, Dublin’s Hackerspace. It’s free entry and has a footfall of about 10,000 visitors by best estimates. Support for the event is strong with partner organisation from the Science Gallery, Festival of Curiosity and Trinity College as well as sponsors like Hack Dublin and Intel. 

  
Exhibitors included travelling makers from around the UK and Ireland, TOG the Dublin Hackerspace, Galway’s 091 Labs, prop makers, educators and crafters of all kinds with around 40 groups of exhibitors. The event is held primarily on the Physics Lawn, a grassed area of Trinity College surrounded by venerably named buildings proclaiming PHYSIOLOGY and ANATOMY. The Maker event forms a village of little marquees spreading through the park like campus. 

  
I scratched together a stall consisting of soldering kits and fellow Shark MSRaynsfords popular laser cut toys and had a frantic though fun time chatting with local makers and visitors. Dublin has a large Polish community (Polish being the 3rd most spoken language after English and Galic though some say that really makes it the 2nd most used) and I’d estimate at least half the families I spoke with were Polish and highly engaged with the making culture. 

  
If you’re looking to run an event for makers and don’t want to be a Maker Faire licencee you couldn’t go far wrong by following Dublin Makers example. For me their biggest challenge is to make it sustainable for the organisers (so they have time to do it) and to continue to grow it. Maybe it’d benefit from charging a small fee for entry and having some big crowd pulling items or acts? Anyway I look forward to being there next time and seeing its continued success! 

return to tog, dublin

Dublin is a bustling if rather small European capital and of course has a hackerspace. They call it TOG for reasons I’m not entirely sure about, they mentioned it was a thermal unit (yes as in the rating of duvets) which seems like an odd thing to call a Hackerspace. Maybe it means something else and I’m not in on the joke, TOG certainly has a sense of humour. 

  
TOG is Ireland’s first and biggest Hackerspace. The community is fairly small at around 50 members, however unlike other spaces the majority of those members are highly active in the space. They’ve had their ups and downs with some in house power struggles, with a long time treasurer asked to leave the board (on freindly terms), disagreements over approach to new membership and scaling issues too. Having said that they have a strong sense of community and for me as a visitor it’s one of the friendliest spaces I’ve ever visited. 

  
On my last visit in 2012 we enjoyed a wonderful BBQ that they’d scheduled to coincide as with the Dublin Mini Maker Faire as was (if you remember there were only a small number of Mini Maker Faires this side of the Atlantic in 2012) they now call their non-branded Maker Faire “Dublin Maker” and it’s become quite a big event. 

  
This year TOG are very proud of their pizza oven, Jeffrey Rowe told me it’d enhanced the social meet ups. People gather round the oven, compare dough techniques, topping recipes and take pride in sharing the pizzas they’ve created. The most noticeable enhancements on tooling are the addition of a Warco metal working lathe and their Lasersaur DIY laser cutter which in spite of variable reliability has defiantly been a bonus in terms of scope of the projects TOG are takeling. 

   
 TOG have an interesting membership join up model. Prospective member have to visit TOG several times over a course of months before being allowed to be a member with membership levels of access (I.e. The run of the space and keys and such). Members may invite prospective members to join, this starts a process of the committee deciding if the new person would be a benefit to TOG. As I understand it only one person has had their membership request refused but compared to other Hackerspaces there is quite a lot more hoops to jump through and effort required.  

 

Change is in the air at TOG however. They recently learned that they’re central Dublin base in The Liberties is to be pulled down and redeveloped. They are already surrounded by fancy executive boom era developments. They’ll probably be moving to a new shared building in Black Pits a little further out of the centre. New premises means a chance to reevaluate and replan, a new start, amen evolution of approach. Until now TOG has been able to get by with out incorporation but it’s a sign of a new approach that they are dotting every legal i and crossing the liability t’s. They also feels it’s a chance to thin out some of the junk they’ve aquired as well a plan a little better about how to handle “stuff” in the future. I was impressed to hear that in the last year or so TOG has provided corporate team building to local larger companies with tasks including soldering and laser cutting. 

  
So whilst TOG are by no means exclusionary, the slower burn to membership keeps the membership small but involved. Sure, like every community they have the usual interpersonal day to day issues and problems but certainly as a welcomed visitor it’s a very pleasant place to be.