Winner's Circle: Here are the winners and stars of our inaugural Amazing Maker Awards

Every creator who shares a project is amazing, and the same can be said collectively of our community of creators, who support and value the work of creators. We hope that these awards will contribute to the recognition in society at large of the creative and technical contributions of creators.

The Amazing Maker Awards celebrate what creators do, for different reasons and in different fields. The winners are an eclectic group of makers, just like what you would see at a Maker Faire. What they have in common is that each taps into a deep human need to create and make something happen that starts with an idea. We are grateful to them for sharing their work with us. We truly believe in the power of sharing, which motivates others to create and make.

In the pages that follow, we present the 26 winners by category, as well as the winners of the specialty awards, who will share a prize pool of $22,000. Check out the online Winners Showcase to better understand these projects and their creators, as well as video demonstrations. (I hope educators and parents will share this showcase with students to encourage them to generate their own ideas and start creating.)

We are especially grateful to our many judges* who reviewed the projects. David Wells, who ran the makerspace at the New York Hall of Science, wrote, “It was so nice to see all these cool projects. It's inspiring to see people doing stuff! Judges Gary Rohrbacher and Ann Filson, authors of Designing for CNC and professors at the University of Kentucky, wrote, "Gary and I just finished judging our projects. What a great way to end the day! So inspiring. Our Make team: Reviewed the rankings produced by the judges and selected the top winners.

We are proud to have launched the Amazing Maker Awards, aka the Makeys, and we encourage you to submit your project for the 2023 awards.

—Dale Dougherty, CEO of Make: Community

* JUDGES – Matthew Wettergreen (Rice University), Debra Ansell (maker/educator), Lydia Cline (author), Joan Horvath (author), Ryan Spurlock (Human Made makerspace), Ann Filson and Gary Rohrbacher (authors/educators ), Jen Fox (Microsoft), Suchit Jain (Solidworks), Cathy Chen (Fab Lab El Paso), Robert Kundel (Restorer Tools), Julie Darling (Author/Educator), Hideo Tamura (O'Reilly/Make: Japan), Julie Legault (author/educator), David Wells (museum educator) and Nicole Shuman (creator of AmeriCorps VISTA).

Make:cast – Interview with the best winners

$5,000 prize

SHE BUILD ROBOTS Christina Ernst

She Build Robots is the kind of website designer Christina Ernst wanted when she was younger: to develop engineering skills with an emphasis on creativity rather than studying.

Currently with about nine projects, shebuildsrobots.org is a free educational resource for learning about robotics and e-textiles. Designed to appeal to teenage girls, it features color-changing...