Thank you again for your help in making the Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire a success! To celebrate the close of our Kickstarter funding, we are holding a mini version of the Faire tonight at 5:30pm in the ballroom of Hotel Providence, in cooperation with the BIF-6 Collaborative Innovation Summit that is wrapping up today. This Faire is free and open to the public. For more information, see:

http://makerfaireri.com/home/an-evening-at-the-ri-mini-maker-faire-september-16-2010/

Thanks,

Brian

Thank you to everyone who backed this project. Maker Faire RI went beautifully last Saturday, and the peace of mind we had from knowing we could pay our bills was a nice thing too!

We had lovely weather, a big tent that we could fit most of the makers in, and pretty good crowds. It wasn't as big as last time, but I still think we at least got close to 2,000 attendees.

Please have a look at some of the coverage to come out of the event:

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• Maker Faire RI 2010 - Photos!
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• Schooltool Connects Schools
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• My "UFO" sighting
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• Ray's Hobby Projects
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Reports from Makers who exhibited:

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• Trashbear Labs
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• AS220 Labs
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• Neuron Robotics
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• Cyrozap
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Check this out! Steve will be exhibiting at Maker Faire RI (and he's a backer of this project!). Very excited to see his book covered in Fast Company:

Steve Daniels, the founder of A Better World By Design and co-creator of Maker Faire Rhode Island, just published a book, Making Do, based on his research on informal economies in Africa. The shocker? He just graduated from college this year and is 21 years old. Here's how one youngin' is making inroads in the humanitarian design field.

Thank you for your support. You've taken us halfway to our funding goal, and that's huge! I'm happy to announce that we've gotten even more Makers signed up to exhibit. We're now up to 27 with more on the way: http://makerfaireri.com/makers/

Maker Faire RI is only nine days away. Thank you so much for your support. It means a lot to us. Just as important as the exhibitors and attendees are the people who make it happen.

This event is a shoestring crazy idea that Kipp Bradford and I put on with in-kind help from MAKE, Waterfire, RI-Nexus, Cutler&Company, and Crowdvine. We don't charge admission, and Kipp and I each expect to be close to $1k out of pocket each time we do this. But heck, we're not in this for the money. It's really about memories, pictures, videos, artifacts, and the real world impact that we get to reflect on until the next Mini Maker Faire RI.

It's about changing the world for the better, and by supporting Maker Faire RI, you're making it happen with us.

Please let your friends, employers, and colleagues know that you've donated and challenge them to match or beat your Kickstarter donation. We'll keep doing this year after year in one form or another, but the money helps us do it right. As my boss Tim O'Reilly said in Work on Stuff that Matters: First Principles:

Money is like gas in the car -- you need to pay attention or you'll end up on the side of the road -- but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!

Thanks for working on stuff that matters with us. In a little more than a week, we're going to make the world better, in our own "biggest little" way!

- Brian