Circuit Youth: Rogue Valley Maker Faire
The beginnings of Ashland’s first makerspace!!!
I mentioned in a previous article that I was working with several other people in a startup where I live. That startup, located in Ashland, Oregon, is a makerspace called Circuit Youth. Our intention is to fill the void of social and professional activity that teenagers and young adults experience outside of school and work to provide them with better opportunities to succeed. We are focused on introducing 21st century technologies such as 3D printers, laser cutters, virtual reality, programming, DIY projects, How-tos, artificial intelligence, robotics, art ideas, and 21st century skills to the youth of Ashland and Southern Oregon. It’s a place for youth to hang out, create, exchange ideas and connections, and invent. I feel that in Circuit Youth we have a great place to begin the maker movement in Ashland.
Last Saturday Ashland hosted the Rogue Valley Maker Faire, the Rogue Valley event of the World Maker Faire which takes place every year in different locations, events, and times around the world as a showcase of the maker movement. The World Maker Faire website describes the events like this:
“We call it the Greatest Show (& Tell) on Earth. Maker Faire is part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new! As a celebration of the Maker Movement, it’s a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness. Faire gathers together tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, food artisans, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. Makers come to show their creations and share their learnings. Attendees flock to Maker Faire to glimpse the future and find the inspiration to become Makers themselves.”
Sponsored by Scienceworks, True South Solar, Linx Technologies, Rogue Valley Microdevices, and other local businesses and organizations, the Rogue Valley Maker Faire hosted over 50 different booths showcasing many different groups. There was a flurry of activity at the event, with children, teenagers, young adults, and adults all running around in a frenzied fury of frantic flow. Before the crowds came, my acquaintance Kiana and I were given a ride by her friend Melissa to Scienceworks to set up the equipment at the Circuit Youth booth.
Then after setting up, which took very quickly because we only had the team’s 3D printer, our laptops, our bags, and our electrifying enthusiasm. We talked about each other’s goals and ambitions, as well as our business ideas and how Kiana got to know the Circuit Youth team. After getting to Scienceworks at 8:20 A.M., we got to relax after setting everything up as we had to be signed in by 9 A.M. However we experienced wi-fi problems until just before 10 A.M. when the staff fixed the signal so it worked for everyone, and then the event began. She and I manned the booth for the next two hours well and I got to practice what I had rehearsed when I was talking to teens and adults about Circuit Youth while Kiana was talking to them about Circuit Youth, the Ashland Agile Learning Center (ALC), and the Ashland Play Station (not to be confused with the video game console!).
Then the rest of my team, Ferananda and the two founders Brendan and Nicole, joined in and brought the rest of the equipment at noon. Were it not for Kiana and I holding the booth, Circuit Youth would have missed the event but miraculously the rest of the team had gotten back in time from an important conference they had in the Bay Area because they were able to schedule their return a day early. The five of us were working together at the booth for the rest of the day taking turns talking to everyone that came. Everyone covered for each other. Brendan got to set up the virtual reality and Nicole got to show the electric light dress that she spent the last few weeks diligently making. Ferananda went occasionally to talk to many of the people at other booths to look for potential collaborators, with me going with her. She and I also stayed at the booth when Brendan and Nicole took breaks.
I got to go to a workshop on 3D printing and maker technology at 1:30 that day hosted by authors Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron at Nonscriptum LLC. Nicole went to the 3:30 workshop on Maker Minds at LAIKA by costume fabricator Annika Schindler to see how miniature electric costumes for stop-motion animation were fabricated. We 3D printed several objects, including a bookmark, a small Maker mascot robot, and a rabbit. We also had brought the business cards and flyers we had worked hard on designing and gave them out to people interested in following and connecting with us and also had a signup sheet from interested people and got a lot of signatures and emails! We got to connect with Linx Technologies, Talent Maker City, Rogue Hack Lab, the Ashland Library, the Ashland High School Robotics Club, Zagorska Oasis, and other local companies, organizations, and clubs.
At the end of the day at 5 PM, Kiana, Ferananda, Nicole, Brendan, and I closed up our booth as everyone else was and as exhausted as we were, we went to our homes to rest after a day of intensity and promise and connections with the community, We felt really confident about the ability of our startup to be ready for the community presentation that we’ll be hosting at 6 PM at the Ashland Underground on December 3rd. We as a team have spent four months now doing market research, getting our finances together, creating our vision and strategy, building connections, crowdfunding, and gathering sponsorships for our startup to be possible, and we have spent a lot of time preparing our presentation and speech for next Saturday. This week and next we will be getting the space where we’re going to have the makerspace ready for its grand opening next Saturday so we can launch and hopefully succeed! I believe we can succeed considering how much we’ve accomplished in such a short time.
