RSA FutureMaker Day

On 19^th June 2013 the Royal Society of Arts in conjunction with the Comino Foundation hosted an interactive showcase and celebration of making at London's Somerset House.

The event was held in part to introduce Makerversity, a new making and learning space which is being set up in the basement of Somerset House.

The day featured interactive demos, displays, presentations and workshops, which were followed by an evening of talks and networking.

The Maker Marketplace

The day part of the event was set up similar to a Maker Faire, with an excellent mix of grassroots communities and projects, micro-enterprises and SMEs, and educational organisations.

Throughout the day I demonstrated SolderPad — an RSA Catalyst supported initiative — and talked about some of the projects hosted by the site. I was joined by colleagues from Embecosm, who were representing the Open Source Hardware User Group and demonstrating a selection of embedded technologies, including a 66-core Parallella prototype.

Embecosm's Simon Cook demonstrating a simple application running on the OpenRISC 1200 processor targeted to a DE0-Nano FPGA development board.

One of only two 66-core Parallella Prototypes in the UK

Personal highlights included a mobile robot that was able to lift objects, and which had been constructed by students from East Barnet School, using the Vex Robotics Design System.

A mobile lifting robot built by East Barnet School

The school had also developed its own much simpler and more affordable robot kit, ebot, which is based on Arduino and makes use of a visual programming environment.

Internet of Things (IoT) veteran hacker, speaker and soon-to-be publish author, Adrian Mc Ewen, was demonstrating the ever-popular Bubblino — a Twitter-connected bubble machine — and the beautifully crafted Good Night Lamp, “a family of connected lamps that lets you communicate the act of coming back home to your loved ones, remotely”.

A big lamp which remotely controls two smaller lamps

No showcase of making would be complete without a demonstration of 3D printing, and an impressive array of 3D printed objects were on display alongside a venerable RepRap printer.

A laptop showing a 3D model, a display of many printed objects, and printing in action

There was also a demonstration of 3D scanning, with a basic system which made use of a small camera, hand-held laser and calibrated backdrop, along with a more advanced system that made use of structured light.

An entry level laser scanning system

For a comprehensive list of exhibitors, plus presentation and workshop details, see the website.

FutureMaker Talks

The evening's proceedings got off to a start with an introduction from Andrew Sleigh, who suggested that Maker Faires serve as a barometer of making, explaining how this year 80 are scheduled to take place across the world and with 8 of those in the UK.

Next up was Laura James, co-founder and director at Cambridge's Makespace. Laura gave the history of Makespace, talked about the facilities it provides and took us through its operating principles, explaining how it is positioned with respect to hackerspaces, TechShops and Fab labs etc.

Laura was followed by Chris Wilkinson, Managing Director of the UK Fab Lab Foundation. Chris suggested that the maker movement represents a new frontier and noted that whilst the motivations and operating principles of fab labs, hackerspaces and makerspaces are varied, these are all different wagons travelling in roughly the same direction.

Chris went on to explain how fab labs came about, who their typical users are, how they provide much needed support and access to resources, and have fostered entrepreneurship.

Professor Bill Lucas was up next and talked of the importance of learning by making, and the need to develop a “manipulate nation”. Warning of the of thinking vs. doing and intellectual vs. effective false dichotomies — suggesting that to treat mind and body as being separate is a terrible error.

Bringing together Stakeholders

The Royal Society of Arts strapline is 21^st century enlightenment, the institution is committed to social progress and has rich history of innovation, so it should come as no surprise that it has recognised the many varied and significant opportunities presented by the maker movement.

The FutureMaker programme brought together a diverse spectrum of stakeholders that are part of, associated with, or which may benefit from being part of, the maker movement. As such the event provided an excellent forum for networking and bringing together people with shared goals.

— Andrew Back