User groups.
Blackburn plays host to this inaugural event.
A newly launched making festival in Blackburn floats Les Pounder’s boat.
The other day we hopped on the train to Blackburn to take part in a new event. The National Festival of Making is an event that’s spread across the large town in north-west England.
Walking from the station to the cathedral, we saw that the BBC had set up a series of stalls and workshops. Included in this were workshops with the micro:bit micro controller, linked to popular television programmes such as DoctorWho. Moving further into the town we noticed stalls talking about arts and crafts, leatherwork, a welding simulator and a paper airplane design studio. These are part of the whole maker culture. It’s not just technology, rather it’s the act of “making something” that joins everyone together.
After visiting the craft area we popped into a building that had been a bank, then a trendy wine bar. But now this space is a Fab Lab, a commercial maker space that goes under the name of The Making Rooms. On the ground floor there was an impressive café area – coffee is always welcome to makers! But just next to the café was a full suite of laser cutters, 3D printers (including an eight-feet tall printer selling for £120,000) and soldering stations all ready for use. Speaking to manager Tom Macpherson-Pope, formerly of the Codebug project, we learnt that this space is a project with the council to help locals develop their ideas and businesses in an incubation space.
This was the first event, and it had a lot of promise. The mix of different activities spread across the town is a great idea, but obviously dependant on the British weather! A fun family day out to inspire the minds of many to take their first steps into maker culture.