Twenty-eight groups of students from principles of business sold handcrafted or personalized merchandise at the annual Maker’s Fair, which took place on Dec. 6 in the quad, business teacher Graeme Logie said.
This year, the Maker’s Fair consisted of 157 students which were split into 28 groups. The number of groups ranged from 25-27 in previous years, meaning some booths had to be located across the stage due to a lack of space, Logie said.
Throughout the process of preparing for the Maker’s Fair, students learned skills such as coming up with product ideas and utilizing the marketing process, Logie said.
“[The students] get the experience of figuring out who to sell to,” Logie said. “One of the assignments was to go out during lunchtime, see who is in the quad and figure out what they would be interested in purchasing. They have to market the event and their booth, and figure out the best way to do that.”
Logie said one requirement for the assignment is for students to determine their target markets: people who will purchase from the group.
“There are several target markets on campus,” said Logie. “There’s students, but also staff and administrators. Each of them might want something a little bit different than what a student wants.”
Logie said the Maker’s Fair originated as an American Enterprise project made by two FBLA students in 2015.
“They created the idea of taking kids from product conception to produce release. They made it a project and they did really well at the national level,” Logie said. “When it was all said and done, I asked them to adapt their project into a classroom exercise. And, every year except [the 2020-2021 school year] it’s been going on.”
Marketing tiny nature terrariums, freshman Aarush Joglekar said images online inspired him to recreate aesthetically pleasing terrains.
“We chose [terrariums] because they resemble nature and beauty,” Joglekar said. “We wanted to recreate them because they look really nice on a backpack as an accessory, and they’re the perfect gifts, especially since Christmas is coming around.”
Selling imitation “Stussy” HHS shirts, senior Andrew Wehbeh said finding companies that could deliver the shirts on time was difficult. Still, he said they sold almost every pre-order of the shirts.
“We came up with the design in class,” Wehbeh said. “Eventually, we found a company that was able to print out DTF sheets, [which] use heat to transfer the print onto the shirt.”
Many students selling items at the Maker’s Fair often continue to produce and sell their items once the fair is over, Logie said.
“There were two groups last year who sold tote bags, and each group sold over $400 worth of stuff,” Logie said. “One of the groups continues to produce stuff. They even have a website that they are selling their products on.”
After the Maker’s Fair, Logie said he hopes students learned the process of being an entrepreneur and feel proud of their creations.
“I think my students are getting tremendous education about being entrepreneurs, because when they sell stuff, they come up to me at the end of the day and say, ‘we sold out’ or ‘I wish I’d made more,’” Logie said. “In the end, most of them get a real kick out of selling their products because they did something to make it. It’s a really great feeling to sell something you’ve created.”
