Ideaspace engagement plan

We need to write an engagement plan to receive the next tranch of funds (£10000). It would be great to include all the ideas from the community. We hope to have this plan written by early November.

The plan needs to show how, during 2013, we'll engage 500 people, each for a total of 6 hours, around Makespace stuff. The engagement doesn't have to be in the space (although we'd expect a lot of it would be). The 6 hours don't have to be at once - it could be a series of 6 1 hour talks. We don't have to be supercareful about tracking the attendees but we will be trying to do this, so having a way of showing who's turned up for what will be necessary.

It would be good to gather ideas here, estimate number of people / hours that could be achieved with each, and flesh each out into a nice description that makes it clear what the activity would look like, who it would attract, and so on.

Bear in mind we'll be executing this plan later :)

Ideas at the meeting involved: maker faire, hosting robot wars, A Level school groups, "make it, fix it" events, instructables - do a simple task and document it (e.g. trebuchet from paperclips), Tedx cam, talks, discussion group

Ideas

Mini MakerFaire

• Faire where people setup stalls and show / demonstrate / sell their creations, by they crafty, techy or whatever!
• Past faires: Derby[1], Manchester[2] & Brighton[3],
• Many people (Possibly > 500 thoughout the day!)
• Unlikely many will be there > 2 hours, but still puts a dent in the 6 hours per person
• Good way to connect with broad community
• Also potential money-earner, selling tea, coffee, juice & cakes?
• Awesome fun :-)

Competitions

Robot Wars-style event

• Possible if we use a lower weight class, e.g. 12.5kg
• The difficult and expensive bit will be building an arena out of polycarbonate to keep the audience safe.
• Getting 500 people building robots (even in teams) for a single event will be difficult.

Micromouse (maze solving)

• We can supply robots for people to program or let them run their own

Mbed/Pololu robot race

• Was run at ARM as part of their 21st birthday celebrations with local schools
• Could be extended to longer tracks or different criteria

Robot Soccer

• Maybe not an easy one for beginners unless you allow remote control

Soap Box Derby

• Needs a hill we can use. There are a few in Cambridge but we probably won't be able to close a road.

Flugtag / Birdman

• See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Flugtag or http://www.worthingbirdman.co.uk/