Today was the 2024 Maker Faire at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Wooster, OH.  I had my car packed the night before so I was able to roll out early and arrived at the start of the setup window.  I parked right up front, grabbed a cart, and asked a volunteer where my booth was.  He was friendly, but not very engaged, and had a little trouble looking up the list.  He eventually found the booth and sent me on my way. 

I was glad I got there early since it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to set up my booth to be bright, colorful, and inviting.  Took me about an hour and when I was done I went back to the volunteer and asked where I should move my car to since I was right up front.  He thought about it for a moment, then decided it was fine just where it was. 

Which was not the case and I managed to mostly not hear the announcement as I headed into the bathroom about moving out cars.  Whatever, my foot was kinda bothering me so I didn’t really want to walk that far.

I was ready an hour before the event started and had time for the obligatory social media post.

And then, I waited for the people and turned myself – for 6 hours – into an extrovert.

I said hello to everyone.  Invited everyone to fold something with me or take a free item from the premade bin.    I was polite, engaging – even (gasp) chatty. 

The kids, as usual, were the best.    I made sure to encourage them and cheer them on when they got a tricky step right.  If things went completely sideways, I always made sure to give them the one that I made too. 

And I got to share some fun surprises.  If we made a box, I always added a small crane or frog before putting on the lid.    The wings on the bird always got a test “flap” and each frog was given a test “hop”. 

I had some good conversations with people and gave out my email address to a couple of people that either wanted an interview or for me to attend another Maker Faire.

To my delight, I had at least one person request everything on my board.    Including one firefly that one little boy did perfectly.  It was pretty great. 

Here’s the final count of the projects I did with people.  I was also folding things for the giveaway box the whole time so I don’t know how much I folded, but it was a lot. 

  • Bird 5
  • Box 19
  • Frog 8
  • Butterfly 10
  • Flower 3
  • Firefly 1
  • Duck 1

The day ended up being 2 hours for set up, 6 hours of folding, and an hour to pack back up.  I got chided for not calling the coordinator over to sit at my table so I could walk around – but it seemed like I would be doing a disservice to those that came to the event.  I did take a short break at the table to have most of a sandwich, but that was it. 

So, it was a long day.  But a productive one.  I think people had fun and enjoyed learning something new.  

Might get some “future folders” out of it.