Making Makers

In the last five years people have started making new tools and technologies that enable anyone to be a maker. Creating access to these tools and materials as well as the opportunity to share andcollaborate with others is essential to the maker experience. Starting with a colorful history of 19th and 20th century making, Frauenfelder will present the new tools and technologies that are drivinginnovation and giving individuals and small groups the ability tocreate amazing things that would've been out of their reach a fewyears ago. He then will present new, inexpensive, and effective ways to conduct research and development, design prototypes, and set upmanufacturing at home, and in makerspaces, libraries, schools,companies, and other spaces.

 

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing, a blog about cultural curiosities and interesting technologies with 4 millionmonthly unique viewers and the winner of the Bloggies’ LifetimeAchievement and Best Group Blog awards. He’s the founding editor-in-chief of MAKE, the only magazine exclusively devoted to do-it-yourself projects. He's the founding editor-in-chief of WiredOnline, and was an editor at Wired magazine and Wired Books from1993-1998. He was Playboy magazine's technology columnist for threeyears. He is also th editor-in-chief of Cool-Tools.org, a tool reviewsite with roots connected to the Whole Earth Catalog.

 

As a maker of things, Mark has built cigar box guitars, skateboards,electronic musical instruments, chicken coops, kinetic sculptures, androbotic monkeys that keep cats from jumping on furniture. He hasconducted workshops that teach people how to make sauerkraut, programArduino microcontrollers, solder circuit boards, build vibratingtoothbrush cars, and construct mandolins from tuna cans.

Mark is also an artist and designer, and his work has appeared ingroup and solo gallery exhibitions throughout the United States. Hedesigned Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk" CD cover, video box, and printadvertisements.

 

He has appeared on The Colbert Report (twice) and the Martha Stewart Show, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic,Popular Science, Business Week, The Hollywood Reporter, Wired, and other national publications.

 

Mark is the author of seven books:

• The Happy Mutant Handbook: Mischievous Fun for Higher Primates

• Mad Professor: Concoct Extremely Weird Science Projects

• The World's Worst: A Guide To The Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept, And Dangerous People, Places, And Things On Earth

• The Computer: An Illustrated History

• Rule the Web: How to Do Anything and Everything on the Internet Better, Faster, Easier

• Made by Hand: My Adventures in the World of Do-It-Yourself

• Maker Dad: Lunch Box Guitars, Anti-Gravity Jars and 22 Other Incredibly Cool Father-Daughter DIY Projects

 

He lives in Los Angles with his wife, Carla Sinclair and his two DIYdaughters, age 10 and 16.