About Maker Faire:
Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker Movement. It’s a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning.
Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters to homesteaders to scientists to garage tinkerers. They are of all ages and backgrounds. The aim of Maker Faire is to entertain, inform, connect and grow this community.
The original Maker Faire event was held in San Mateo, CA and in 2014 celebrated its ninth annual show with some 1100 makers and 130,000 people in attendance. World Maker Faire New York, the other flagship event, has grown in four years to 600+ makers and 80,000 attendees. Detroit, Kansas City, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Orlando, Silver Spring, Paris, Rome, Oslo, Trondheim, Tokyo, Newcastle (UK), and Shenzhen are the home of larger-scale, “featured” Maker Faires and over 120 community-driven, independently organized Mini Maker Faires are now being produced around the United States and the world.
Maker Faire is supported by Make: magazine and Maker Media.
About Make: Magazine:
Make: is the first magazine devoted entirely to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) technology projects.
Make: unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages.
Make: celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your will.
Besides the magazine and the faire, Make:
and Maker Media is:
- a vital online stream of news and projects, blog.makezine.com;
- a retail outlet for kits and books, the Maker Shed;
- a steady stream of fun and instruction via our YouTube channel;
- Make: Projects, a library of projects with step-by-step instructions;
- a publisher of best-in-category titles via Make: Books, including introductions to electronics, Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, Arduino and more.
About Rochester Mini Maker Faire:
Rochester Mini Maker Faire is independently organized and operated under license from Maker Media, Inc.
Event Co-Chairs for the Rochester Mini Maker Faire are Laurie Yager, Dan Schneiderman, and Antonio Scordo III.
Contact us at: [email protected]
About Laurie:
Laurie has been a Model Schools Coordinator/Technology Integration Specialist for the Mohawk Regional Information Center for the past 16 years. In this role, she provides professional development for educators in a four BOCES region of central and northern New York, on various ways to enhance their instruction through the integration of technology. Laurie specializes in leveraging technology to enhance STEM education, with involvement in robotics, programming and 3D printing. She is also involved with FIRST LEGO League robotics competition in the Utica Region, having served as a coach, judge, and judge advisor over the last 9 years, in addition to providing professional development to teacher coaches in the MORIC region.
Laurie has been a NYSCATE presenter for many years (2001 to present) and will be participating in two presentations at this year’s annual conference: “Coding Round Table” and “Programming Your Digital Story” both centered on robotics and programming.
Laurie has been married over 31 years to a wonderful DIY’er, Paul, and has two children, both involved in STEM fields: Kyle, as a computer specialist and Jeni as a software engineering student.
About Dan:
Dan is a current resident of Rochester working for the University of Rochester as a programmer for the School of Nursing. Since high school, Dan has been involved with the FIRST Robotics community in the area. First as a student, and then as a mentor and volunteer. He graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2012 with a double major in Information Science Technology and Political Science. While there, he was a member of Computer Science House, a special interest house with similar ideals to the Maker movement. Dan became connected with the Western New York tech community after organizing and leading multiple BarCamp Rochester events. BarCamp is a free conference where any attendee can give a talk on any subject that interests them.
Dan grew up in Rochester and was recently married in late May.
About Antonio:
Antonio has been a Coordinator for Staff Development, Technology Integration for Erie 1 BOCES / Western New York Regional Information Center for over thirteen years. During this time he has worked with many educators on a multitude of different topics, hardware, and software, such as: Tech Tools for Early Literacy, Podcasting, Sketchup, Video Editing, Audacity, and Programming for Kids (Scratch, Kodu, Small Basic). More recently Antonio has been working on creating staff development programs around MinecraftEDU in the classroom and exploring inexpensive robotics solutions.
Antonio has been on the NYSCATE Fall conference planning committee for the 2006 to 2008 fall state wide conferences. He has been a NYSCATE presenter for many years (2002 - 2006, 2013), and he has also been a past presenter at the international ISTE Summer Conference: in 2006 (Tech Tools for Early Literacy - Hands-On Workshop), 2007 (Podcasting for Communication : Hands-On Workshop), 2010 (Reaching 21st Century Skills with Scratch : Poster Session), and in 2011 (Programming Microsoft Kodu at the Microsoft Booth on the vendor floor).
