Celebrate New Jersey’s Makers Day This Weekend at Over 250 Locations

Last year, the garden state implemented the first state wide event dedicated to maker activities. The event was a success. More than 15,000 people flocked to 150 participating libraries, museums, schools, makerspaces, and AC Moore stores, in every county of New Jersey.

For 2016 New Jersey Makers Day returns, bigger and better, as a two day event on March 18th and 19th!

New Jersey Makers Day celebrates the culture of making in New Jersey and fosters collaboration between makers.

Planned participation has grown immensely. As of March 15th, there are 260 participating sites signed up, including over 150 libraries and more than 60 schools, plus 17 AC Moore stores, and independent makerspaces and hackerspaces. The event organizers say expanding to a two day event led to a huge increase in participating schools; only four schools were part of the event last year.

The expanded event also means visitors have more time to plan out their activities and decide what programs they want to participate in.

“This year, there will truly be something for everyone, all over our state,” says Doug Baldwin, New Jersey Makers Day organizer and Emerging Technologies Librarian at the Piscataway Public Library. “From drone demonstrations, 3D printing and modeling workshops, robot demos and builds, basket weaving, wood and metal working, STEM story times to jewelry making and circuit building, our visitors will truly be able to create their own Maker experiences.”

In addition to all the unique programs that will be available at different locations, there will be a common marble run or roller coaster project that will be available at a lot of sites. There will be different ways to do the project, so they won’t all be identical. Last year, there was a balancing toy project, and the DIY lightbulb project shown in the video below.

The main sponsors this year are LibraryLinkNJ, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), which owns and operates New Jersey’s largest electric and gas provider. Additional sponsors include AC Moore craft stores, Birdbrain Technologies, 3D printing surface manufacturer BuildTak, and Soldering Sunday, a developer of educational electronics kits that grew out of the FUBAR Labs hackerspace.

Whatever sort of making you are into or would like to learn about, get yourself to one of the participating locations and check things out this weekend.