Coming to New York: the Road to Maker Faire Challenge!

After two years of traveling to the Bay Area, we’re proud to bring the Road to Maker Faire Challenge to NYC this September. Presented by Esurance, one lucky maker will win $2,500 to exhibit at the Greatest Show & Tell on Earth, Maker Faire!

Whether your project travels in a suitcase or requires a tow hitch and trailer to move it around, this is a unique opportunity to showcase what you make for an enthusiastic audience in America’s most populous city.

Previous applicants have included everything from robotic machines to paper crafts, from drawbots to homemade toys & games, from model railway societies to online communities sharing skills and plans. If you make something, you could win!

The complete rules are over at the contest site, but I’ll recap them for you:

• The contest begins today, June 25th!
• The contest ends at 11:59pm PT on Monday, August 5th. That gives you more than a month to prepare your materials for submission.
• But don’t wait until the last minute to apply. The sooner you enter, the better the chance you could be featured here on the MAKE blog.
• If you already plan on applying to World Maker Faire, you can also participate in this contest.
• The $2,500 grand prize is yours to use for travel and accommodation, or to upgrade your project to the next level. Whatever you don’t spend on the road is yours to keep.
• The 4th annual World Maker Faire is September 21st & 22nd in Queens, NYC. Save the dates now should you win!

If you’re already a resident of the five boroughs or if you’ve never traveled to New York City, this is an opportunity you do not want to miss. If you use the prize money to advance a project you’re already working on, or if you couldn’t make the trip without it, apply now! It could be the best road trip you ever go on.

And lastly to give you some inspiration, here’s a slideshow of projects that competed on the previous Road to Maker Faire Challenge:

A lifesize, lifelike raptor to walk around the faire.

Make your own toy and learn about electricity, circuits, motors and LEDS!

DARwIn-OP is an acronym for Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence – Open Platform or DARwIn for short.

Travel chess set that you can play a 3 dimensional game on! When finished everything packs flat! Perfect for your hectic on the go lifestyle! Fits easy in any backpack or purse!

This was a three year build aimed at making an exact, hand made, animatronic replica of the robot WALL-E, from the film of the same name.

The Hello World Program is an educational puppet show for aspiring makers to learn about robotics, electronics, programming and digital media.

Can you find the combo and light the light?

Custom Prosthetics and Super-human Armor systems.

Worlds first rubber band shotgun kit with 3 modes of firing.

AirBnb for Makers. ThingShare is a Collaborative Consumption platform for makers to share tools and consumables.

High School students convert truck completely electric.

Is it a time machine? A MIDI controller? A sound board? An art sculpture? Yes! We just call it awesome.

The UW student organization for 3D printing is back with a second full-sized 100% recycled milk jug boat.

Dependable and stylish commuter transportation at ten cents for a 40 mile trip.

Make your own stylish custom computer case using only common hand tools and minimal skills. Is your style art deco, mid-century modern, mission, or modernist? I’ll show you how to adapt that style to a computer case that would be proudly displayed in your equally stylish office or living space.

Building a 3D Molten Glass Printer with a Vitrigraph kiln.

WaterBoy & BubbleHead are underwater performance art – on land! Part spectacle, part mad science and part tent revival, WaterBoy is hard to explain but impossible to forget.

Using a 3d printer, CNC Router, Arduino, attiny85 and simple electronics, I’ve encased a tickle-me-elmo doll in Carbonite, like Han Solo, and it still wiggles, giggles, and tickles.

Using 3D printing, 3D scanning, & 3D modeling to imagine a better future with kids around the world.

Unique wheelchairs, scooters, BBQ grills robotic ice chest and fire machines!

Trailer mounted “Human Power Conversion Unit”. Allows up to sixteen operators; working as a team, to drive a capstan style interface. The teams collective kinetic energy is converted to A/C power via gearbox and generator. Power is used to operate lights, powertools, and battery chargers to store energy.

Build marble runs using only paper and tape. The Paper Roller Coaster templates have been used in schools in all 50 states and over 25 countries. It’s a great hobby for anyone that likes origami or engineering.

Environmental Monitoring System powered by Arduino, Solar Energy, and Wi-Fi with a custom-built web and mobile API for visualizing data.

ModelBox 3D is a fast and affordable 3D rapid prototyping solution. You can take any 3D model, slice it with our software, print it using a standard inkjet or laser printer and create a real sculpture in 15 minutes for a fraction of the cost of other 3D printers.

My repurposed life brings to you old and comfortable sweaters transformed into beautiful and practical purses and accessories.

Garden lights that sparkle when the wind blows. The stronger the wind blows, the more they light up.

Think of a giant sized ant farm, the windmill, the farm and the field, but in the field something is moving….it’s a gopher!

Arduino Powered Wall Drawing Robot

A simple laser light show with 3D printed parts, motors, mirrors, potentiometers, and some batteries.

Robotic Drawing Arm Kit

MuMu watching and re-projecting Mei’s memories.

TARDIS Tesla is a lightning performance/game involving two large tesla coils, a replica TARDIS, and sonic screwdriver TV remotes.

ChipiKart is a very tiny electric racer. It’s all the fun you can fit into a lawn tractor seat.

The Common Room community aims to spontaneously redefine space as a semi-public living room for concurrent creativity. In The Freeform Common Room we’ll use everything from basic knitting to hyperbolic crochet techniques to enable makers to bring out the whimsy in everyday spaces. Let your collaboration be the exhibit.

A modular N scale model railroad enhanced with Arduino-powered features.

Make an Artificial Flower That Lights Up When You Water It with Lemon Juice.

Have you ever wanted to tattoo classical works of art onto a banana peel. Of course you have!