The eepybird.com guys will be back at the Maker Faire, re-creating the Bellagio fountain out of Coke and Mentos (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th St., Flushing Meadows Corona Park
September 29-30, $12-$27.50 per day, weekend pass $20-$50
718-699-0005
www.makerfaire.com
2011 maker faire slideshow
Last year’s Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science was an absolute blast, both literally and figuratively, capped by a massive Coke-and-Mentos fountain display orchestrated by the folks at eepybird.com. The fair, dedicated to all kinds of cutting-edge technology and DIY creativity, is back this weekend with another full slate of family-friendly programs on Saturday and Sunday. There will be more than five hundred maker exhibits at the third annual fair, scattered around the 3D Printer Village, the Arduino Tent, the BUST Craftacular Marketplace, and the Maker Shed Store, showing off miraculous movement machines, wearable art, steampunk fantasies, robots, electrical experiments, computer games, rockets, food, and so much more. Attendees can check out the ITP Nerdy Derby, the Life Size Mousetrap, the Circus Warehouse, the Power Racing Series, the Swap-o-Rama-Rama Fashion Show, and, yes, the return of the massive Coke-and-Mentos exploding fountain. Among those giving special presentations in the NYSCI Auditorium are John Dudas (FIRST Robotics), Seth Godin (Art and Science and Making Things), Carla Hall (The Chew), Alton and Carrie Barron (Making Things Makes Us Better), and Jenny Sabin (Between Architecture and Science: Material Analogs), while dozens more will be hosting lectures, demonstrations, and workshops at several outdoor stages, examining such topics as “Controllable Paper Airplanes,” “The Useless Machine,” “Imaging the Future and Building IT,” “Crowdfunding Success Patterns,” and “Creating an Urban Tiny House Community.” The Music Stage will be home to a wide range of offbeat concerts using unusual instruments and electronics, with performances by Kelvin Daly, C. Chris Peters, Parallax Moon, Kim Boekbinder — The Impossible Girl, Moldover, and others. It doesn’t matter whether you were a high school science geek (or an adult science geek) or think you learned nothing in chemistry, biology, and physics; the Maker Faire will make you feel like a kid again, even as it leads the way into the future. For a look at last year’s fest, go here.