Event Overview

Date: Jun 12 2018 5:00 - 8:00

Location: Rayburn Building, Washington D.C. (in the cafeteria)

Point of Contact: Trey Lathe trey@nomcon.org

More info: 

This year, the Nation of Makers*, in collaboration with the Institute of Library and Museum Sciences (IMLS)*, and the Congressional Maker Caucus* will be organizing and hosting the 2018 Capitol Hill Maker Faire. The Faire, as in past years (2015-2016), will be held in the Rayburn Congressional office building and will take place on June 12, 2018 from 5 to 8pm. 

The Faire also includes panel discussions during the day.  The public is welcome to attend.  More info at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-capitol-hill-maker-faire-registration-45237582828.

Important note: everything has to go through the security scanner, so projects can't be too big.  If we have something big then we have to make special arrangements.

We participated in this event in 2016.  It is an interesting opportunity for outreach.

Retrospective:

Mike Werling did this item solo.  While this is a good event for the maker movement in general there is limited benefit directly to Makersmiths.  Participation in future events should be considered with that in mind.

Lessons learned:

• Find out how big the space is ahead of time, the table was very small and hard to lay out our stuff
• Having the portable/wheeled box was good since the trip was made on the metro.  Consider that for "Makersmiths in a Box".  However, the box I picked didn't fit through the security scanner
• Interactive displays are better than static projects.  How can we make things more interactive and still highlight the capabilities of the space?

Event Plan

Set up starts at 4:00, we can arrive a little early to get through security.

We will be taking a small sample of items to display on a table at the show.  Focus is on how Makersmiths provides opportunities for community makers to work together to complete projects, with access to speciality tools and facilities.

Exhibits