This past weekend I went to the Engadget Expand NY expo, held at the Javits Center this past Saturday and Sunday, November 9 and 10. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, other than that it was showcasing new gadgets and had some connections to the “maker” community.
The expo was somewhat smaller than I expected – maybe 40 vendors? But the vendors covered a huge range of areas. If there were 40 vendors, there were 30 distinct categories, including remote surgery robots (with hands-on demos {on balls of clay, no living things…}), a general “invention community” (which in return for helping with your invention will “helpfully” do the patents and retains the intellectual property, which makes me exceedingly wary of patent trolls), and of course several 3D printers, including a Maker Magazine display with several different models of printers.
What I was most unprepared for is that a number of the displayed products actually aren’t in production yet, but rather are still in kickstarter campaigns. I look forward to no longer being a student, so that I can more easily take part in such campaigns.
One big annoyance is that many, perhaps even most of the displays did not have fliers or even simple business cards that I could grab, stick in my bag, and then look them up once I get home. In the absence of such fliers the least the vendors could have done was have a poster with a QR code I could scan. But nope, not a single one had that. So, there were some cool things I saw and wanted to learn more about, but damned if I can remember what…
Sounds like the vendors were very under prepared. At least you got to see some interesting products.