Makers Central 2026

We must be doing something right, as we were asked back to Makers Central once again! And it is an event we won’t be saying no to.

As always, limited numbers just due to the space we have on the stand, so only 13 allowed to sign up and those spaces were filled extremely quickly. Fair to say I think this event is popular with more than just myself.

A few of us got there on the friday evening to do a little bit of setup, and thankfully we didn’t have any front walls on our stand this time. Definitely an improvement. I think they had also allocated us a slightly longer stand which made a lot of difference.

Saturday morning is when most people arrived with their droids. I was there bright and early as I had all the passes for us and they were being very strict on letting people in, even with droids. In no time the stand was full and waiting for attendees.

A few MOTs were needed, my own R2’s included, so we got those out of the way first. Then the next big step was something I had been working on for a while… Droid Hunters! This was going to be the first real test of a game I’d been developing to allow event attendees to ‘scan’ droids and register them in an app. Letting them keep track of all the droids they’ve seen, but also how often they have seen it. Now if they come back next year they’ll be able to tell if the droid they’re looking at is the same one.

As I handed out the last few tags, the attendees started in. First there were the early birds who got in an hour early who started wandering around and the questions started. They never stopped! I don’t think I’ve explained the build techniques, part runs, what the club does, or even the difference between spun and hydro formed domes so much in one day! Its a very different event to a typical comic con where most people just want to see R2. With Makers Central there is a definite trend towards how they work more than how they look. Adam’s work in progress is always a good crowd pleaser, even if it does put the rest of us to shame!

Saturday was basically none stop, if we weren’t roaming the halls to entertain/annoy others, we were on the stand answering questions. I think we were 3 or 4 deep at our stand for the majority of the day.

Of course, we all went out that evening for the traditional builders curry. Lots of friendly banter and good food to be had.

Sunday was a much more relaxed day, I think there were fewer people in total and the event finished an hour earlier than the Saturday. A fact we were all rather grateful of.

We still had to break down the stand and load up the droids, but due to restrictions from the NEC we weren’t allowed on site until the venue had cleared. So lots of waiting around. But once allowed on site the load up went smoothly and I think we were all away by about 5:30pm.

As usual we ran the charity raffle for the event, with some fantastic prizes from various makers. The grand total was close to £200 for our chosen charity, Alzheimer’s Society!

As for the Droid Hunters game, apart from a few teething issues and some problems scanning tags, it went down quite well with 30+ people hunting. I’ve since worked a few kinks out of the system and I’m looking forward to the next test!

https://hunters.droidbuilders.uk/