Maker Faire New York Debrief
We made the trip to the Big Apple and wanted to say 'thanks' to all of you who came and saw us!
As you may have known, Maker Faire New York has come and gone and SparkFun was in attendance. It was awesome! We saw some amazing projects, met some great people, and just generally had a wonderful time.
One of our favorite things to do at Maker Faire is meet and talk with some of our customers. For an example, check out the above video. Ah yes, just another normal day at Maker Faire.
A pair of happy young soldering gurus!
We also ran soldering workshops! This year we gave away 540 kits in just two days and raised $4532.80 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Expanding Your Horizons! Kudos to all those people who took the soldering class and helped raise this money for two worthwhile organizations.
Playing the SparkFun "Snake Stomp" game.
We hope those who made it out to Maker Faire had as much fun as we did! Thanks again to all our great customers for making this trip worthwhile. To see more photos check out the SparkFun Flickr page. Cheers!
Oh, I would love to attend something like this. I've never heard of it before, but it's right up my alley.<br />
<br />
I may try to attend the one in NY next year, and drag along some friends.
There was a maker faire in the midwest, in Detroit, MI. It was successful enough that they'll likely do it again next year, but unfortunately SparkFun did not attend. Hopefully they'll come next year.
I wish there was a Makerfaire in the midwest, I want to go!
I believe giving away parts to poor EE college students counts as charity!
-GTech
Future CEO
great! im glad to see you guys giving back... its something i firmly believe in.
remember that 100K giveaway you guys had a while back? how about giving that to charity this year?
please all customers of sparkfun who would rather have that 100K given to charity instead of parts to them, chime in!!
the holidays are coming up and i know sparkfun is planning some zany giveaway or something for the new year...
..so why not make it to charity insteaf?
keep up the great work guys... u just got a star in my book :-)
-drex
CEO
The Silicon Horizon Inc.
Lol I'm poor but there is no charity for me. I would rather have the parts given to the people.
I'm going to go ahead and anti-chime in. I would rather have the parts than an equivalent dollar value donated to charity. Two reasons:
1.) SparkFun gives away 100K worth of products. This immediately reduces their losses to their wholesale (pre-margin) costs, assuming that most of the comp'd orders were for items that would not have been otherwise purchased.
2.) My impression is that giving a sum to charity is not an effective marketing technique in America, unless you spend an equal or greater sum bragging about it (through advertising). A parts giveaway, on the other hand, seems to have proven itself an effective viral marketing tool. In tandem with (1), SFun is thereby able amplify the usefulness of each dollar they are able to spare, such that they can give away $100 worth of parts even when they can actually only spare $25.
3.) I enjoyed "Atlas Shrugged".
Aret:
thanks for your feedback.
While i think you are correct from a business standpoint, I think the goal was to help people and not really manuever or do marketing....
does that make bad business?
oh well !!
:-)
All i can think about is the people we help however small or large it may be.
I would love Sparkfun to take a more active role in this since they are in a great market place right now to do more good, and i think the people at Sparkfun are good people and may agree to do more.
I am not associated with these charities in any way, just a person who wants to help out.
Thanks for sharing,
-drex
lets call it
"the human business model".
:-)