DIY Book Scanner

I just signed up to show my scanner at the Tulsa Mini-Maker Faire. I plan to take my scanner and laptop to allow people to see how to create their own E-books from printed books. The Faire will be on Saturday, August 26 from 10:00 to 5:00. It will be held here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA in Central Park Hall at the Tulsa Fairgrounds. Admission is free. http://tulsa.makerfaire.com/

Bill

Good luck this weekend. Let us know how it turns out and what sort of interest there is for DIY book scanning.

Thanks for the good wishes. I am currently going through my pre-show anxiety, trying to figure out what to take and how to pack it up the most efficient way. But I will get there.

I went last year and had a pretty good show of interest. I'm not sure how many of them really thought about doing it. This year I am changing things up a little bit. I will have handouts and a sign up sheet for people who want more information. I will post something about it when it is all over.

Bill

Last time I did something like this, I set up a monitor that displayed the designs photo gallery. If you want to set up something similar, let me know and I can help.

Also, don't get discouraged if there is no obvious effect after the initial interest. You will be planting a seed of an idea that may sprout a month or a year later when they need to scan something and realize that it is possible with only a cardboard box and a tripod.

-Jonathon Duerig

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I have almost everything I need to do the show and tell, so I won't add any extras. I am already going to have an 8 foot table pretty well filled up. In addition to the scanning I am showing a side interest in book repair. That may catch a few people too. Any body with a bunch of old books is likely to need some books repaired, especially old paper backs.

I realize that most people that stop at the booth will be interested in what I am doing, but not doing it for themselves. But by giving out the handouts and offering to email them more info they may remember that they can do it when they come up with the need. If even one or 2 actually respond I figure it will be worth while.

Bill

The Maker Faire was pretty good. I didn't have as many people stop as last year, but I didn't have nearly as good a location. I still had quite a few people who stopped to see what I was doing. Most of them thought it was interesting and went on, but a few showed a real interest. I gave them handout so they could see what was involved. On the handout I included the address for DIY Book Scanner. Some of them may be popping in in the next few days. One thing that I liked was that I introduced CHDK to a man who is developing a scanner for his old slides. He was trying to figure out how to work the cameras and was happy to hear about CHDK. That is one of the things I like about the Maker Faire. It allows people to get ideas, even if they don't directly apply to my display. Here is a picture of my display.
The stuff on the left of the table is my book repair stuff.

Bill