To bring the growing national movement to a local scene, Piedmont will hold its first annual Maker Faire on May 31.

Maker Faires are events throughout the the country and the world that strive to promote science, technology, engineering, art, and math throughout communities, and expand the Maker community to a younger, more diverse audience.

Vince Monical, the high school liaison to the District Technology Advisory Committee, became interested in the Maker Faire when Dave Ragones first introduced it to Piedmont because it exposes people to technology through a positive outlook.

“It integrates technology and art into projects that people are making with their hands,” Monical said. He became an early proponent of bringing the fair to Piedmont.

The event which calls itself “Greatest Show and Tell on Earth” started in San Mateo in 2006, and has since grown to include many flagship and “Mini-Maker Faires” throughout the world.

For high school students, Piedmont’s local fair will be an opportunity to create their own projects, and to help mentor middle school and elementary students with their projects.

“We’d also like [highschoolers] to be mentors for younger kids, get community service hours, and share expertise,” Monical said. “We’ve talked to the robotics club and the digital printing club. They can use their programming knowledge to help with younger kids to get them interested and excited.”

To keep this a youthful event, the organizers want this to be a completely student run event.

“The other Maker Faires aren’t child driven, they’re adult focused,” Monical said.

Junior Tiffany Zhou is one of the students who will help advertise and oversee the event. She first heard about it when Ragones and Monical presented the fair to the AP Computer Science class, and believes it is a good opportunity to introduce younger children to technology and design.

Because the goal is for the fair to be run by students, Monical believes it is important that the students spread the word themselves.

“One of the things I’ll be doing is trying to get more people involved, like going around to other classes and getting people interested,” Zhou said.

To bring additional expertise to the fair, organizers have teamed up with Mark Harrison. Harrison, who is Pixar’s technical lead of the data management group, designs drones as a hobby, and has given speeches at previous East Bay Maker Faires. For him, the faires bring awareness to the design process, and shows that anyone has the potential to engineer and design.

“You don’t think that somebody sat down in one day and built that certain thing,” Harrison said. “There’s the understanding that there’s trial and error, and that you can push through in a similar way.”

Another goal of the Piedmont Maker Faire will be to find a permanent place for community members to design and construct their projects. Starting on March 1st, the fair will share the Hacker Scouts Oakland workshop on Saturdays from 1 to 5 pm, which will provide the necessary tools for complex projects that most families do not own, such as laser cutters and soldering kits.

With these resources and mentors, Harrison hopes to emphasize the building experience.

“It shows that people can get involved in the projects and areas that they have little experience in,” Harrison said, “and get a level of success.”