2016 Heartland Maker Fest

Meet the Makers: Hyve Synth

Were happy to have Skot Wiedmann returning to the Maker Fest this year. He is an engineer and artist whose creations explore the intersections of art and science. Using his knowledge of electrical...

Meet the Makers: Caroline Goldsmith

We're excited to welcome back artist Caroline Goldsmith! From the maker: "Impressionist temperature plein air painter working in oils. Goal is to paint everyday and mostly outdoors. What I am thinking as I paint is to explore brushwork and abstract shapes and tonal...

Meet the Makers: Snayl

Part of our performer line up, Heartland Maker Fest is excited to welcome Snayl to our stage! Snayl is Austin Duncan, an electronic artist whose music might be best characterized as post-electronica. The terms electronic and techno,...

Meet the Makers: Anna Williams

Anna Williams is a recent graduate of Parkland College and this is her first year participating in the Heartland Maker Fest. She is passionate about many art forms including music and writing. Her visual art reflects this, as many of her pieces are inspired by songs...

Meet the Makers: Central Illinois Aerospace

We are happy to announce that the Central Illinois Aerospace rocketry club will again be joining the Heartland Maker Fest this year. Last year they showed us how to make awesome paper rockets, and this year they plan on...

Meet the Makers: Isaac Kidder Fine Art

A brand new maker, but certainly not a rookie, Isaac Kidder is an artist who specializes in both 2D and 3D work, focusing on metal and wood sculpture, painting and photography. In his work, Isaac uses the theme of connectivity and oneness in order to convey the ideas...

Meet the Makers: Central Illinois Puppetry Guild

The Central Illinois Puppetry Guild is made up of individual artists who create and perform with puppets of all kinds: traditional hand puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes, and many others. While...

Meet the Makers: Vinny Santanelli Music

Another addition to our new line up of local performers this year, we're excited to have Vinny Santanelli playing at Heartland Maker Fest! Vinny is originally from the East coast, but now makes his home in the Midwest where he receives a lot of his musical inspiration...

Meet the Makers: ScratchBuilds

  ScratchBuilds is back! At last year's Maker Fest we learned what a wonderful local resource they are for helping you enter the world of First Person View (FPV) Racing Quadcopters. If you haven't heard of it before, it's really exciting stuff! And here's a...

Meet the Makers: Maddy MotzArt

Maddy MotzArt (Madalyn Davidson) is one of our new makers this year. She writes: I have been painting all my life starting out in watercolors and acrylics. When I was younger my father would bring a dollar store set of watercolors on vacation in Michigan and Florida...

Meet the Makers: Elis Artz – Brazilian Jazz

We've expanded this year's fest to include local performers and we're honored to welcome Elis Artz to the Heartland Maker Fest family. Here are a few words from Elis about her art: Elis Artz was born In Brazil and has lived in Champaign since 2006. She sings a...

Meet the Makers: Society for Creative Anachronism

Take a glimpse at Maker Fest 1099 with the Society for Creative Anachronism's Arts and Sciences group! Their local artisans and creators' projects range from delicate calligraphy to heavy metal blacksmithing, with particular areas of interest in fiber arts, jewelry,...

Meet the Makers: Piper Pottery + Crafts

We're happy to announce we have a new Maker this year that helps connect people + clay!  And best of all, they will be providing a hands-on experience to get you playing with clay. Cammie Meerdink is the artist behind Piper Pottery + Crafts. For over 20 years, she has...

Meet the Makers: C-U Destination Imagination

If your child is crazy about puzzles, loves to paint and draw, can build anything out of cardboard boxes, writes amazing stories, thinks up whimsical new worlds, has a flair for drama and acting, is totally into science, or has rewired your toaster into a working time...

Meet the Makers: C-U Community Fab Lab

The Champaign Urbana Community Fab Lab has truly become a staple of the DIY/Maker community in Champaign-Urbana and they are returning to the Heartland Maker Fest to show off all they have to offer. Be sure to stop,...

Meet the Makers: Royel Bijou

We're happy to announce Royel Bijou will be returning to the fest this year to share her talents for turning recycled materials into new garments. In past years, she has brought both fashion shows and wonderful hands-on experiences by helping people create their own...

Meet the Makers: Eric and Elliott Moore

Curious about how to create christmas displays that sync lights with music? Well let this father and son maker team show you! Eric and Elliott Moore will have an on site display showing how people can decorate whole houses with lights synced to music. They use...

Meet the Makers: Full of Wishes

Full of Wishes is a new business targeting home decor, wedding receptions, and hostess gifting. We had the pleasure of meeting this local maker recently and were thrilled by her story of bringing her ideas to life by utilizing local resources like the CU Community Fab...

Meet the Makers: Makerspace Urbana

Makerspace Urbana, a working group of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, is dedicated to enabling the blend of arts, humanities, science and technology. Our mission is to provide an open community lab where people of diverse backgrounds can learn, teach,...

Meet the Maker: Oumnipotent

As a part of their ongoing Eco-friendly 3 'R's project, Oumnipotent has been exploring some exciting possibilities and novel ideas of reusing upcycled materials artistically. Creativity is at the core of it! In their words, "We want to hold hands to walk into a better...

Meet the Makers: One Dream Foundation – Global Crafts

One Dream Foundation describes their vision as follows: The mission of One Dream Foundation has remained the same since its founding in March 2007 by Betty Phiri Chibwe and Oliver Chibwe.: to “promote the value of giving to humanity”. This approach is intended to...

Meet the Makers: Weiskamp

  Want to learn how to make your own creative screen-printed designs. Well come get hands on with Weiskamp Screen Printing at the Maker Fest this year.  They will be setting up a table to help you make your own...

Meet the Makers: AE Machines, LLC

We're excited to welcome AE Machines as a first-time maker this year. AE Machines, LLC is a Champaign-Urbana, IL based company designing tools to make automation design and implementation accessible to a broader group of people and businesses. They are located in the...

Meet the Makers: CUDO Plays

CUDO Plays is an Illinois-local board game design competition hosted by the Champaign-Urbana Design Organization. They bring together gamers, makers, and designers to bring their game ideas to reality! For three years, they have guided teams over the course of seven...

Meet the Makers: Illinois MakerLab

The Illinois MakerLab is the world’s first Business School 3D Printing Lab.  We are very proud to have them back again at the Heartland Maker Fest. Join us to learn how to turn objects into ideas, with 3D...

Meet the Makers: Dot Dot Dot T-Shirts

Eco-friendly fashion from Dot Dot Dot T-Shirts! They reuse and up-cycling thrift or donated cotton clothing (Mostly Knit) and yard goods and remake them into Braided and/or Tie dyed Shirts,...

Meet the Makers: Origami by Xudong

Photo by Jay Schubert (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jayschubert/) We’re thrilled Xudong Guan will once again share his beautiful origami creations at the Heartland Maker Fest.   Origami is not just "Crane"....

Meet the Makers: Teen Open Lab @ The Urbana Free Library

The Teen Open Lab, one of Urbana’s hidden treasurers, will be joining the Heartland Maker Fest again this year!  The Teen Open Lab is a teen directed space that promotes creativity, peer instruction and community building, in collaboration with the CU...