World Maker Faire NY: Behind-the-Scenes Action

The gates to World Maker Faire New York don’t open until 10am on Saturday, but already the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) and surrounding grounds are buzzing with beeping forklifts, tractor trailers, and tent construction crews getting ready for the biggest maker event on the East Coast.

This is the fourth World Maker Faire and this year there are more makers scheduled to show their stuff and attendance is expected to be much greater, too. To accommodate the growth, the fair has expanded into an adjacent park between the Queens Zoo and NYSCI.

Also new this year will be two homemade 3D scanner projects and the winner of the Road to Maker Faire Challenge, a homemade 3D printer called the Deep Imager 5. The fair will also exhibit some of the finalists of New York Top Maker competition, including Tangeez, an interactive game of stackable LEDs that was featured at last year’s fair.

In the midst of this activity, the Hardware Innovation Workshop is happening inside NYSCI today. The one-day conference allows makers to mingle and learn about the state of hardware innovation.  Follow the live stream broadcast here.

Of course that’s just a tiny fraction of the action as the weekend nears. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at  the preparation as we get ready for showtime Saturday:

Audio and video crews are working hard to ready one of the many stages for a full slate of presentations.

Information kiosks, maker stations, subscription booths, and exhibitor tables are all a part of the collective process to bring you an awesome fair.

A constant heavy workload took its toll on one of our massive fork lifts. In the spirit of Maker Faire, though, the crew works quickly to make the repairs.

The crew starts rigging up their infamous contraption Tuesday morning.

Maker Faire wouldn’t be complete without Makey, Maker Faire and MAKE’s robot mascot. For now he’s under wraps.