Welcome to NYC Maker Faire 2018
/Reporting by Jonathan Sperling and Victoria Merlino
Queens was for the creators on Saturday and Sunday, as Make: Magazine took over part of the borough’s Flushing Meadows Corona Park to host its World Maker Faire New York 2018.
An estimated 80,000 attendees flocked to the area surrounding the New York Hall of Science to experience hundreds of projects from creators across the country, in what will likely be considered the year’s grandest celebration of science and innovation.
“The special aspect of being here and the constant of Maker Faire is the access to the creators,” said Sabrina Merlo, managing director of Maker Faire. “People are with their projects, so that access to the maker is where the juice comes from for the audience … There’s all this crazy stuff and it’s great and it’s fun to watch, but the conversations and the exchange are in some ways where a lot of the real energy comes from and I think why people leave feeling so inspired,” she continued.
Fairgoers were treated to a wide array of creations — everything from the “Hand of Man,” an enormous, 26-foot long hydraulically-actuated human hand that could crush cars, to “Tapigami,” a model city crafted entirely out of masking tape.