World Maker Faire 2018!

This past weekend was the sprawling and epic World Maker Faire, and for the first time in years, I had the chance to see it all! Held right here at the NY Hall of Science in Queens, I got to witness student-made robots, a giant peg board that makes its own musical loops, 3D printed GoKarts and SO MUCH MORE! It was wonderful to see the Maker community coming together to share some amazing and innovative work- but it was even more exciting to see the huge number of students and young Makers learning by doing. We even witnessed the world's first giant-sized Connect4 game board, powered by an Arduino, named Marvin. We also loved Gustavo Silveira (Nerd Musician)'s electric synth, gorgeous programmable jewelry, and (of course) the army of R2-D2 clones!

This Arduino-powered ukulele from Music Hart was accompanied by an equally awesome 3D printed clarinet, piano and drum set. Rock on!!

This wheel from FatCat Labs lets you choose pegs that trigger specific MIDI cues, making music with every turn

This was my first chance to see the epic exhibit Hand of Man by Christian Ristow in person, and it did not disappoint!

These robots, built by the incredibly talented Emerald Knights high school FTC team, went head to head to lift up yellow boxes as quickly as they could. Letting visitors control the robots led to some user errors, but the mechanics were still impressive!

The DroidBuilders in New Jersey have been busy preparing their 100% REALISTIC droids for this Maker Faire. Beeps and dance moves included, but they're still a few steps away from adding Princess Leia holograms.