Maker culture
The maker culture is a contemporary subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture that intersects with hardware-oriented parts of hacker culture and revels in the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ones. The maker culture in general supports open-source hardware. Typical interests enjoyed by the maker culture include engineering-oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3-D printing, and the use of computer numeric control tools, as well as more traditional activities such as metalworking, woodworking, and, mainly, its predecessor, traditional arts and crafts.
The subculture stresses a cut-and-paste approach to standardized hobbyist technologies, and encourages cookbook re-use of designs published on websites and maker-oriented publications.[1][2] There is a strong focus on using and learning practical skills and applying them to reference designs.[3] There is also growing work on equity and the maker culture.
Media[edit]
MAKE (a magazine published since 2004 by O'Reilly Media), is considered a "central organ of the Maker Movement,"[48] and its founder, Dale Dougherty, is widely considered the founder of the Movement. Other media outlets associated with the movement include Wamungo, Hackaday, Makery, and the popular weblog Boing Boing. Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow has written a novel, Makers, which he describes as being "a book about people who hack hardware, business-models, and living arrangements to discover ways of staying alive and happy even when the economy is falling down the toilet".[49]
In 2016 Intel sponsored a reality TV show—America's Greatest Makers—where 24 teams of makers compete for $1 million.
Maker Faires[edit]
Since 2006 the subculture has held regular events around the world, Maker Faire, which in 2012 drew a crowd of 120,000 attendees.[50][51] Smaller, community driven Maker Faires referred to as Mini Maker Fairs are also held in various places where an O'Reilly-organised Maker Faire has not yet been held.[52][53][54][55] Maker Faire provides a Mini Maker Faire starter kit to encourage the spread of local Maker Faire events.[56]
Following the Maker Faire model, similar events which don't use the Maker Faire brand have emerged around the world.
Maker Film Fest[edit]
A Maker Film Festival was announced for August 2014 Powerhouse Science Center in Durango, Colorado, featuring "Films About Makers, and Makers Making Movies."[57]
PPE Production in Response to COVID-19[edit]
The Maker movement galvanized in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with participants initially directing their skills toward designing Open Source ventilators. They subsequently targeted production of Personal protective equipment (PPE). Disruption of supply chains was a mounting problem, particularly in the early days of the pandemic, and compounded with the Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the medical sectors.[58] The response was largely regional and spread across 86 countries on 6 continents, and coordinated their response, designs and shared insights with each other through intermediary organizations such as Tikkun Olam Makers, the Fab Fouhdation or Open Source Medical Supplies which included more than 70,000 people.[59][60][61]
National movements emerged in Germany, Brazil, Romania, France, Spain, India, and the United Kingdom.[62] Said movements used distributed manufacturing methods; some cooperated with local government entities, local police and the national military to help locate supply shortages and manage distribution.[63][64][65]
Total production figures sides the maker community exceeded 48.3 million units produced, totaling a market value of about $271 million.[66] The most-produced items included face shields (25 million), medical gowns (8 million) and face masks (6 million).[67] The primary modes of production utilized were familiar tools like 3D printing, laser cutting or sewing machines, but multiple maker organizations scaled their production output by pooling funds to afford high-output methods like die cutting or injection molding.[67][68]
Criticisms[edit]
The maker movement has at times been criticized for not fulfilling its goals of inclusivity and democratization.[69] Evgeny Morozov's Making It in The New Yorker, challenging the movement's potential to actually disrupt or democratize innovation;[70][41] and Will Holman's The Toaster Paradox, about Thomas Thwaites' the Toaster Project's challenges to the DIY and "Maker impulse."[71]
Critical making can also be seen as an argument against or a comment on maker culture, which has been explored by Garnet Hertz, Eric Paulos, John Maeda, Matt Ratto and others. The primary argument is that maker culture is unnecessarily fascinated with technology, and that projects are improved when they work to critically consider social concerns - borrowing from the more established disciplines of industrial design and media art practice.[72] Others criticize the maker movement as not even being a movement, and posit that fundamental hypocrisy extends to limit the scope and impact of every aspect of the "Movement."[73]